Discover Tula: Mexico's 400-Year-Old Pueblo Mágico and Historic Gem
The oldest city in Tamaulipas state is a 400 years history charming Pueblo Mágico (Magical Town). Founded in 1617 on the Cerro La Cruz southern slope by the Spanish friar Juan Bautista de Mollinedo, Tula is about 145 kilometers from Ciudad Victoria, state capital.
The charming Tula’s colonial airs Historic Center offers relaxed walks to appreciate its churches, cobbled streets, and the corners where ancient-techniques crafts are made, as well as discover the Porfirian remnants in its buildings, a time when Frenchified ornaments were in fashion.
The famous and beautifully adorned leather jacket known as “cuera”, recognized as Tamaulipas typical dress, has its origin in Tula.
The story goes that this garment was born in 1915, when the revolutionary general Alberto Cabrera Torres commissioned the artisan Rosalío Reyna Reyes to make a garment that would keep him warm and at the same time protect him from vegetation while riding.
The coat is still in production and it takes up to three days to get it ready with its delicate decorations.
By the way, the vegetation around Tula, which before cueras had caused more than one scratch to the riders, is extremely peculiar. The area’s semi-desert climate is conducive to cacti proliferation—biologists have cataloged 140 different species, some considered biological rarities.
Some 31 species of cacti in the area are endemic and another 42 share their endemism with neighboring states. Such peculiarity awakened the Cactus Nieves ice cream parlor owner's imagination, town’s tourist attraction, for offering flavors such as nopal, mesquite, biznaga and cardón.
The charming Tula’s colonial airs Historic Center offers relaxed walks to appreciate its churches, cobbled streets, and the corners where ancient-techniques crafts are made, as well as discover the Porfirian remnants in its buildings, a time when Frenchified ornaments were in fashion.
The famous and beautifully adorned leather jacket known as “cuera”, recognized as Tamaulipas typical dress, has its origin in Tula.
The story goes that this garment was born in 1915, when the revolutionary general Alberto Cabrera Torres commissioned the artisan Rosalío Reyna Reyes to make a garment that would keep him warm and at the same time protect him from vegetation while riding.
The coat is still in production and it takes up to three days to get it ready with its delicate decorations.
By the way, the vegetation around Tula, which before cueras had caused more than one scratch to the riders, is extremely peculiar. The area’s semi-desert climate is conducive to cacti proliferation—biologists have cataloged 140 different species, some considered biological rarities.
Some 31 species of cacti in the area are endemic and another 42 share their endemism with neighboring states. Such peculiarity awakened the Cactus Nieves ice cream parlor owner's imagination, town’s tourist attraction, for offering flavors such as nopal, mesquite, biznaga and cardón.
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