Top Patzcuaro Culture

From Purépecha pyramids to cemeteries where the ancestors return: Day of the Dead around the lake. In one day, travel through three eras of Michoacán with a local guide who is also an anthropologist. Walk the pyramids of Ihuatzio and Tzintzuntzan, two capitals of the Purépecha Empire, a people the Aztecs never conquered. Visit a 16th-century convent and its olive trees from around 1540, where the Purépecha and Spanish worlds met. Taste carnitas in Quiroga, see glazed pottery made by hand in Santa Fe de la Laguna, and sip artisanal mezcal at a distillery in Oponguio. Along the way, visit village cemeteries decorated for the Night of the Dead and learn what each flower, candle and offering means. End the day at sunset on a hill above Lake Pátzcuaro, where the ancestors rest.