Orizaba is an important town on the route between the port of Veracruz and Mexico City, which has a pre-Colombian history. It was in fact so important it was the first capital of the state of Veracruz, before Xalapa (Jalapa) took the status a few years later.
Today, it is a major domestic tourist attraction with the designation "pueblo magico", and contains attractions such as the Iron Palace, which was designed and built by the famous architect who also built the Eiffel Tower, a museum complex the commissioned by the Duchess of Meir in memory of her husband, the Duke, as well as a handful of parks and churches. The municipal palace even has a small zoo, next to the teleferico that leads to the ecological park on the top of a hill.
Nevertheless, what really stands out is its proximity to Mexico's highest mountain, the dormant volcano Pico de Orizaba, which is more than 5,000 metres in height. By car, it's actually around 2-3 hours in distance and it's actually in the state of Puebla, but I believe Orizaba is the closest city, and as you can see from the photos above, you can see the peak from the city itself. The mountain is North America's third highest, and the world's seventh-most prominent one. Mexico has around a dozen of glaciers, which are all found on the 3 highest peaks. Popocatepetl, however, has been very active and thus everything has melted. When I was in Oribaza, it's the summer so I didn't see any either.
It also contains some beer factories, and economically it's more developed because it's a relatively safe area.
It's around 5 hours from Mexico City by bus, and 2 hours from the state capital of Puebla.
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