The Salto de San Antón is the kind of sight few cities can offer fifteen minutes' walk from their cathedral: a 40-metre waterfall pouring over a cliff of columnar basalt into a deep green ravine, wrapped in vegetation and birdsong while the city carries on above. A walkway with viewing platforms descends partway into the amphitheatre, putting you at eye level with the falls; after summer rains the flow is at its theatrical best.
The waterfall sits in the barrio of San Antón, a traditional pottery-making neighbourhood, and the lane leading to the viewpoint is lined with workshops selling hand-thrown planters, cazuelas, and garden ceramics — worth browsing on the way out. The falls have suffered from the city's growth over the years, and the water is not what it was a century ago when Mexican landscape painters made the scene famous, but the setting remains genuinely dramatic. Go in the morning, and combine it with the Jardín Borda, a ten-minute walk back toward the centre.