Snuggled in an isolated valley between the foothills of the Sierra Madre and the Chihuahua Desert, Hidalgo del Parral is among the country’s richest mining towns. Parral produced lead and silver fro more than 350 years before being exhausted in the 1980s. The city also gained fame as the place where Revolutionary hero Pancho Villa was assassinated.

Parral’s mines are played out, but along the city’s winding, narrow streets are some lovely mansions. Silver mining peaked in the mid to late nineteenth century, and many palatial homes date from that era. The home of the town’s founder, mining entrepreneur Pedro Alvarado, restored as Museo Palacio de Alvarado, has a neo-baroque portal and limestone façade carved with human faces and animal figures.

The remodelled Museo del General Francisco Villa displays Revolution-era artefacts and personal effects of Pancho Villa.