The Best Hotels in Puebla

A 30-foot lobby ceiling hung with Mexican artisan craft sets the tone at this 168-room urban hotel in Puebla's modern Angelópolis district. The name nods to local legend, the city supposedly built on the whispers of angels, though the surroundings are firmly contemporary. It runs smoothly for business travelers and leisure guests alike, with easy access to the colonial heritage district when the cobblestones and mole restaurants come calling.

A 19th-century building on the edge of Puebla's centro historico, done up in the unapologetically lavish style Banyan Tree deploys everywhere from Phuket to the Maldives. The hotel holds a Michelin Key. Rooms and suites keep traces of the original architecture while delivering all the high-thread-count modernity you'd expect. A rooftop Thai restaurant and bar sits above it all, and the full Banyan Tree spa is on hand for anyone who needs recovering from the climb up there.

A 19th-century water purification plant turned hotel, with the conversion handled by Ricardo Legorreta, the modernist architect behind Mexico City's Camino Real. The 26 rooms lean toward austere, blacks and whites and bare stone walls left exactly as found, with comfort arriving through texture rather than color. The elevated pool runs thirty meters, which is not a typo. Puebla is a quieter stop on the road between Mexico City and Oaxaca, and La Purificadora is a good reason to make it one.