Introduction

Each dawn, the sun rises over Michoacan’s lakes, woods, beaches, fertile valleys, rivers and volcanoes. At dusk, the moon sails over the pink quarry stone buildings and cobblestone streets of its colonial cities, among them wonderful Morelia, the state capital whose name is derived from that of the illustrious general of Mexican Independence Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon.

No matter the time of day, all of Morelia’s streets lie half in sunlight, half in shadow, each leading to a beautiful architectural monument as decreed by Spain’s King Felipe II and Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, when the city, then called La Nueva Valladolid, was born in 1541. And of course, each also leads to the imposing baroque cathedral with its three naves and two 223-foot towers, the tallest in the Americas.