Photo: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walk through Valladolid, the colonial town built in the 1540s on the ruins of Zací, the Cupul Maya capital. It starts in the Sisal neighbourhood at the Franciscan convent of San Bernardino de Siena, founded in 1552 and used as a refuge and military post in the Caste War, then follows the Calzada de los Frailes, the friars' road, to the main square, its La Mestiza fountain of 1924, and the Church of San Servacio, rebuilt facing north after the Crime of the Mayors of 1703. At the Palacio Municipal, murals by Manuel Lizama trace the town's history, including the Caste War that began here in 1847; the Museo de San Roque, the town's first hospital, tells of the uprising of June 1910. Then north to Cenote Zací, the water that decided where the town stood, and the barrio churches of Santa Ana, Santa Lucía, La Candelaria and San Juan.
11 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 58 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 1 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
The Main Square, Church of San Servacio, Palacio Municipal, Museo de San Roque.
Church of Santa Ana, Cenote Zací, Church of Santa Lucía, Church of La Candelaria.
Calzada de los Frailes, Convent of San Bernardino de Siena, Church of San Juan.
The parish church on the main square, rebuilt in 1706 facing north so its altar would not stand where the alcaldes were killed in 1703.
The town hall of 1864, where Manuel Lizama's murals tell Valladolid's history, from the Conquest to the Caste War and 1910.
The town's first hospital, later a burial ground and the place where the leaders of the June 1910 uprising were shot, now a museum.
A limestone cavern with its roof partly fallen in, the water that supplied the Maya town of Zací and the colonial town after it.
The Franciscan convent founded in 1552 in Sisal, with fragments of its sixteenth-century frescoes still visible near the altarpieces.
The friars' road between the convent and the town, a dirt track paved with stone and lime by the mid-seventeenth century and rebuilt in 1801.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 11 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 11 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Valladolid — the Colonial Town, the Caste War and Cenote Zací, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
11 narration points, including The Main Square, Church of San Servacio, Palacio Municipal, Museo de San Roque and Cenote Zací. That is about 14 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1½ hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 11 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.