To the south, Catemaco is a spellbinding lake set in an extinct volcanic crater, where you can see the last remaining tract of Gulf coast rainforest. This area, and the high mountains around Córdoba and Orizaba, are the playground of the adrenaline tourist too. The colonial cities in the mountains are also delightful: Xalapa, seat of the Veracruz state government, is the finest, with its balmy climate, beautiful highland setting and superb anthropology museum. El Tajín, near the coast in the north of the state, is one of the most important archeological sites in the country, and Filo Bobos, only recently excavated, is also well worth a visit.

Less than an hour north lie La Antigua and Villa Rica, where Cortés established the first Spanish settlements on the American mainland, and Cempoala, ruined site of the first civilization he encountered. Veracruz itself is one of the most welcoming of all Mexico’s cities too busy with its own affairs to create a separate life for visitors, the steamy tropical port draws you instead into the rhythms of its daily life, and its obsession with music. That said, domestic tourism to the area is on the rise, both to the beaches and, increasingly, for adventure tourism – whitewater rafting, kayaking, canyoning, climbing and more – around the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre and the rivers that flow off it. Though there are long, windswept beaches all down the Atlantic coast, they are less beautiful than their Pacific or Caribbean counterparts, while the larger coastal towns are primarily commercial centres, of little interest to the visitor. Yet even in the rainy season the torrential downpours are short-lived, and within a couple of hours of the rain starting, you can be back on the streets in bright sunshine. In part, at least, this is because the area makes no particular effort to attract them the weather can also be blamed – it rains more often and more heavily here than just about anywhere else in Mexico. The few non-Mexican tourists who find their way here are usually just passing through.

Villa de vera cruz