Puerto Vallarta was founded in 1851 as Las Peñas, a salt landing serving the Cuale silver mines, and stayed a village of 1,500 souls until Hollywood arrived in 1963. Three days of museums, petroglyphs, film-set ruins and Gringo Gulch mansions tell the full story.
One-room museum at the island's western tip holding Aztatlán-culture pottery, shaft-tomb figurines and obsidian points excavated around Banderas Bay, dated roughly 300 BC to 1200 AD. Open Tue–Sat 09:00–17:00, donation box only.
The river island that split Las Peñas in two until the 1920s bridges were built. Its two swaying suspension footbridges, 1970s craft stalls and John Huston statue mark exactly where villagers once forded the Cuale by mule.
Jungle boulders above the Nogalito river carved with spirals and concentric circles by Aztatlán peoples around a thousand years ago. Reached on a guided walk from the village 20 minutes south of town; there is no signage, so a guide is essential.
The hill lookout above Zona Centro where 19th-century settlers watched for the boats carrying salt out to the Cuale silver mines. A cross has stood on this outcrop since the 1850s; roughly 250 steps climb up from Calle Abasolo.
Begun in 1903 and completed in 1951, the parish church is topped by a crown modelled on the one worn by Empress Carlota. The original concrete crown fell in the 1995 earthquake and was replaced by a lighter fibreglass copy in 2009.
The four brick arches were salvaged from a private Guadalajara mansion and rebuilt here in 1984 as an open-air stage. Behind them the town hall stairwell holds Manuel Lepe's naive-art mural of the bay, painted by Vallarta's best-known artist.
Two floors on Calle Zaragoza tracing the Manila galleon route past Banderas Bay, the 1811 insurgent landings, and the navy's role in the 1914 Veracruz occupation. Ship models, uniforms and cannon; open Tue–Sun 09:00–17:00.
Rafael Zamarripa's bronze of a naked boy riding a seahorse became the city emblem after the 1976 cast was swept out to sea in a storm and replaced. The recovered original now stands on Playa Los Muertos; this is the Malecón twin.
Richard Burton bought this Gringo Gulch house for Elizabeth Taylor's 32nd birthday in 1964. Tours take in her bedroom, the pink-tiled bathroom and the pink 'Puente del Amor' he built across the lane to his own house, Casa Bursus.
The steep cobbled lanes above the river where American and Canadian expats bought villas after the 1964 Iguana publicity turned the fishing village into a scandal headline. Look for brick cupolas, wrought-iron balconies and hand-laid river-stone walls.
The concrete shells of John Huston's 1963 Night of the Iguana set still stand on the headland above Mismaloya cove. The shoot brought Burton, Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr here and put Puerto Vallarta on the map; 20 minutes south by bus.
The neighbourhood chapel north of the Malecón, at the heart of the barrio built by families who came down from the Cuale mines. Its plaza still hosts the Refugio fiestas in early July with fireworks, banda and street food stalls.