Know Before You Go
The museum opens Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Monterrey, Mexico
Palacio del Obispado (Bishopric Palace)
One of Monterrey's oldest buildings is perched atop a hill boasting impressive views of the city.
Built in the late 1780s, the Bishropic Palace was built on the eponymous Cerro del Obispado to house the seat of religious authority in the Spanish Viceroyalty province of Nuevo León. During the rule of President Porfirio Díaz, and to celebrate the country’s Independence Centennial, the palace was expropriated and work began to turn it into the Regional Museum of Nuevo León in 1902.
Works were continuously delayed, and the final stretch was overseen from 1944 by architect Joaquín A. Mora. The museum opened in 1956. Its collection mostly contains artifacts from the building’s own religious history, as well as Viceroyal and Porfiriate displays.
In a city known for their understatements of geological features—where a 1.1-mile-tall (1.8 kilometer-tall) mountain still gets called “Saddle Hill”—the Cerro del Obispado is not necessarily what everyone would call a “hill.” However, this altitude in a central point of Monterrey provides a privileged vantage view of the city. There is a flag-lined, dedicated lookout outside the palace, where you can appreciate the impressive geology and scale of Mexico’s third-largest metropolitan area.
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