For 250 years Acapulco was Spain's only Pacific port, where Manila galleons unloaded silk and porcelain under the guns of Fort San Diego. Three days trace that trade, the Independence siege, Rivera's last mural and the 1950s resort boom.
Pentagonal fortress built 1615-1617 to guard the Manila Galleon trade, rebuilt after the 1776 earthquake. Twelve halls cover Pacific trade, piracy and the Independence siege. Open Tue-Sun 09:00-18:00, tickets at the moat gate.
A 42-metre white cross on Cerro de la Bruja, built 1970 by the Trouyet family. From the terrace you look straight down on Puerto Marqués and the deep bay that let galleons anchor close to shore for four centuries.
Boats from Caletilla cross to the island used as a lookout and quarantine station in colonial times. Glass-bottom launches pass the submerged bronze Virgen de los Mares, placed in 1958 at eight metres depth over old anchor ground.
A small stone amphitheatre cut into the cliff on the Las Playas peninsula, the same headland lookouts watched from for Dutch and English raiders. Open-air, unstaffed, benches face due west over the open Pacific.
Rivera spent his final months here in 1956-57 and covered the street facade in mosaic of shells, tiles and mirror: Quetzalcóatl, Tlaloc and a serpent wrapping the wall. The house sits on Calle Inalámbrica in the Cerro de la Pinzona quarter.
The bronze huntress marks the midpoint of the 1955 Costera, the road that turned a fishing town into a resort. The roundabout became the address of the Presidente and Ritz hotels during the boom years.
Around 1,000 Mexican ceremonial masks in a colonial-era house beside Fort San Diego, arranged by region: Guerrero tigre masks for the Tlacololeros rain dances, Michoacán viejitos, Chiapas parachicos. Tue-Sun 09:30-18:00.
Cliff-top hotel bought in 1954 by John Wayne, Johnny Weissmuller, Cary Grant and Errol Flynn as their private club; Weissmuller lived out his last years here. The pink walls and round bar are largely unchanged.
The hillside barrio above La Quebrada keeps its 1930s stair-streets, painted concrete houses and the walled gardens Rivera worked in. Steep cobbled callejones run from Calle Inalámbrica down toward the old town in about twenty minutes.
Eighteen rock panels with roughly 2,000 carvings made between 800 BC and AD 600 by Yope-related groups: birthing figures, ballplayers, spirals. A 1.5 km interpretive trail climbs through dry forest above the city.
The shallow inner shore below Fort San Diego is where galleon cargo was lightered ashore for the Feria de Acapulco, the annual January trade fair that drew merchants overland from Mexico City for eight weeks.
The city's working market carries the ingredients that came off the trade route and stayed: tamarind, coconut, mango criollo, plus Guerrero staples like pozole verde with pork rind, eaten on Thursdays across the state since at least the 19th century.