The hook
A well-loved and frankly well-visited Porfirian town in a green Veracruz valley, with the highest mountain in Mexico — a glaciated 5,636 m volcano, third-highest in North America — standing directly over its rooftops on a clear morning.
01Why it's worth it
Orizaba is the rare Mexican town whose landmark is not in the town at all. Pico de Orizaba, or Citlaltépetl, is a dormant stratovolcano carrying the country's largest glacier, and when the cloud lifts it appears above the valley at a scale that doesn't look real from the street below.
The town itself is worth the stop on its own terms. A cable car climbs Cerro del Borrego for the whole valley. The Palacio de Hierro is a genuinely odd survivor — an entire municipal palace of prefabricated iron, made in Belgium and shipped over in pieces during the industrial boom, now painted and standing on the main square. And the Paseo del Río Orizaba is a couple of kilometres of landscaped riverside walk with a free animal park strung along it, which is a strange and rather good thing for a town of this size to have.
An honest caveat about getting there. The main highway from Mexico City is fine and heavily used. Locals are less relaxed about some of the secondary approach roads in the state — one native commenter, recommending the town warmly, added the road out there "se ha vuelto asquerosamente insegura." Stick to the toll highway, travel in daylight, and check current advice for the state rather than the town.
Climbing the peak is a different proposition from visiting the town: it is a glaciated 5,600 m mountain with real altitude and crevasse risk, normally done with a guide from Tlachichuca on the Puebla side.
02How to experience it
Two nights breaks the Mexico City–Veracruz run nicely. Walk the river in the morning while the volcano is still clear, take the teleférico, eat in the market. If you want the mountain, budget several days for acclimatisation and go with an operator.
From the locals
Orizaba came up twice in one long Mexican thread asking for the most beautiful little-known town people had actually been to — and the first thing the top comment does is disqualify it from the "little-known" part: "es conocido y va mucho turista pero me gusta ir ahí, es bonito, limpio, gente amable." Known, plenty of tourists, and still worth it. This is a popular domestic destination, not a find.
The second reply is where the caution comes from, and it arrives attached to the praise rather than instead of it: "es una lástima que últimamente la carretera para allá se haya vuelto asquerosamente insegura… pero eso no quita que sea uno de los lugares más bonitos en los que he estado" — a shame the road there has lately become disgustingly unsafe, but that doesn't stop it being one of the most beautiful places I've been. The same commenter added the honest generalisation that took the edge off it: "como todas las del país si somos sinceros."