Silver has been mined in TAXCO since before the Conquest, and although its sources have long been depleted it still forms the basis of the town's fame and its livelihood. Nowadays, though, it's in the shape of jewellery, made in hundreds of workshops to be sold throughout the country and in a bewildering array of shops (platerías) catering to the tourists in Taxco itself. It's an attractive place, a mass of terracotta-tiled, whitewashed houses lining the narrow cobbled alleys that straggle steeply up the hills like some Mexican version of a Tuscan village. At intervals the pattern is broken by some larger mansion, by a courtyard filled with flowers, or by the twin spires of a church rearing up – above all the famous Baroque wedding cake of Santa Prisca. Unfortunately, the streets are eternally clogged with VW Beetle taxis and colectivos struggling up the steep slopes, and forming an endless paseo around the central Plaza Borda. Once you've spent an hour or so in the church and a couple of museums there's really nothing to do but sit around the plaza cafés. Still, it is a pleasant enough place to do just that if you don't mind the relatively high prices, and the profusion of other tourists.

Though it might seem a prosperous place now, Taxco's development has not been a simple progression – indeed on more than one occasion the town has been all but abandoned. The Spaniards came running at the rumours of mineral wealth here (Cortés himself sent an expedition in 1522), but their initial success was short-lived, and it wasn't until the eighteenth century that French immigrant José de la Borda struck it fabulously rich by discovering the San Ignacio vein. It is from the short period of Borda's life that most of what you see dates – he spent one large fortune on building the church of Santa Prisca, others on more buildings and a royal lifestyle here and in Cuernavaca – but by his death in 1778 the boom was already over. In 1929 a final revival started with the arrival of the American architect and writer William Spratling, who set up a jewellery workshop in Taxco, drawing on the local traditional skills and pre-Hispanic designs. With the completion of a new road around the same time, the massive influx of tourists was inevitable, but the town has handled it fairly well, becoming rich at the expense of just a little charm.