Yucatán in 6 Days: Mérida, Chichén Itzá, Valladolid, Cobá and Tulum

Collect the car on arrival, even though it will sit in a hotel lot for two nights: the airport desks are open whenever flights land, the city offices keep shorter hours, and you drive out of Mérida on day 3 at 06:15, before any of them open. Book five days, from here to Tulum International Airport (TQO), as a one-way hire, and ask for the drop charge in writing before you pay. At the airport desks (Mex, Hertz, Europcar and the other majors) an economy car with the mandatory Mexican third-party liability cover and a collision waiver comes to roughly 30 to 40 US dollars a day once taxes are added, which is about 3,100 pesos for five days at 17.7 pesos to the dollar. The one-way charge between the two states is not published by any agency and is the number that varies most; forum reports put it around 120 US dollars, about 2,100 pesos. Budgeted here at 5,200 pesos for the car, or 2,600 per person for two sharing. Solo travellers: double this line. Third-party liability is compulsory in Mexico and your credit card's rental cover does not replace it, which is why the 5-dollar-a-day rates on comparison sites are not the real price. Photograph every scratch before you leave the lot. The drive to the Centro is 10 km and about 25 minutes.

Two nights. A long-established hotel on Calle 60, two blocks north of the Plaza Grande, with a pool, and the reason it is picked is the car: guests use the covered lot about 30 m away for around 50 pesos a day, which most Centro guesthouses cannot offer at all. Tripadvisor 4.0 on about 750 reviews; the rooms are old-fashioned rather than boutique, and that is reflected in rates of roughly 67 to 77 US dollars a night for a double. Lodging is not counted in this itinerary's budget.

Mérida's main square, laid out in 1542 on top of the Maya city of T'hó, whose stones went into the cathedral you are looking at: it is the oldest cathedral on the American mainland, finished in 1598. Free, and an active church, so step around Mass. Start here late rather than early: by 16:00 the laurel trees shade the benches and the heat has broken enough to walk.

The conquistador Francisco de Montejo's house of 1549 on the south side of the square, now a free museum run by Fomento Cultural Banamex. Look at the carved facade before going in: two Spanish soldiers standing on the heads of defeated Maya, which tells you more about the city's founding than any label inside. Open Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 to 18:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 14:00, closed Mondays, which is one of the reasons this itinerary starts on a Saturday.

Free, open daily from 08:00 into the evening, and the best single introduction to the peninsula you are about to drive: 27 large murals by the Mérida painter Fernando Castro Pacheco, painted in the 1970s, running from the Maya creation story through the conquest and the henequen haciendas to the Caste War. The upstairs Salón de la Historia holds the biggest panels. Ten minutes on these makes Chichén Itzá, Valladolid and the Caste War story told on Valladolid's convent wall on day 4 make sense.

The standard first Yucatecan dinner, and it earns its place because it covers the whole regional canon properly: sopa de lima, poc chuc, papadzules, relleno negro and cochinita pibil, with the tortillas pressed by hand in the front room. Open daily 07:00 to 23:00. This is the original branch on Calle 62; the second one on Calle 55 is larger and serves the same menu. No reservations, so a Saturday queue of 15 to 20 minutes is normal at 19:30, less at 19:00. Budget 350 pesos a head with a drink.

Mérida puts on a free public show somewhere in the Centro every night of the week, and Saturday's is the Noche Mexicana: folk dance and live music on a stage at the southern end of Paseo de Montejo, from about 20:00 until 22:00 or 23:00, with food and craft stalls around it. It is a 15-minute walk north up Calle 60 from dinner. Schedules shift for holidays, rain and festivals, so check the city's events page on the day.

A market stall in the Mercado de Santiago that serves cochinita pibil and lechón tacos and tortas, open every day from about 05:15 to 13:00, which is the whole point: in Yucatán, cochinita is breakfast. Go before 09:00 on a weekend or the best cuts sell out. Four or five tacos and a juice come to about 150 pesos. Cash.

Every Sunday from 08:00 to 12:30 the city closes Paseo de Montejo and a 5 km loop down to the Plaza Grande to cars, and this is the one morning of the week the boulevard is pleasant to be on. Rent a bike from one of the stands along the route, from about 20 pesos an hour, or simply walk it. The mansions lining it were built on henequen money around 1900, when Mérida had more millionaires per head than anywhere in Mexico; Palacio Cantón and the Quinta Montes Molina are the two to stop in front of. Budget 50 pesos.

From 10:00 on Sundays the Plaza Grande and the streets around it turn into a free all-day fair: craft stalls, marquesitas, lemonade, and folk dancing under the arches of the Palacio Municipal around midday. Nothing to book and nothing to pay for unless you buy, which is why it costs 0 here. It is also the easiest place in the city to buy a hammock, if that is the souvenir you want.

A small family restaurant on the edge of the Santa Ana park that cooks the Yucatecan home dishes the tourist menus skip, and its cochinita is the one that Netflix's Taco Chronicles chose to show. Open daily 08:00 to 18:00, so it is a lunch place, not dinner. Try the queso relleno or the pollo pibil if you have already had cochinita for breakfast, and the dessert that gives the place its name. About 350 pesos a head.

The context museum for the whole week, and the reason it is today rather than never: four halls on the Maya from the geology of the peninsula to the present, with the Chicxulub impact, the ball game and the calendar explained properly before you stand in front of them at Chichén Itzá tomorrow. 150 pesos for foreign visitors, open Wednesday to Monday 09:00 to 17:00 and closed Tuesdays. It is in the north of the city, about 7 km from the Centro: an Uber or DiDi is roughly 100 to 130 pesos each way, which is less trouble than moving the car out of the lot. Air-conditioned, which is why it sits in the hottest part of the afternoon. Budgeted with the ride at 270 pesos.

The trip's one proper dinner, on the Calle 47 restaurant row: wood-fired Yucatecan fish and seafood from a chef who cooked abroad before coming home, listed in the Michelin Guide and 4.6 on Tripadvisor. Open Sunday to Wednesday from 13:00 to 22:30, so a Sunday dinner works. Reserve on the restaurant's own site. Mains run 350 to 550 pesos; budget about 900 a head with a drink. Early night: the car leaves at 06:15.