If you had more time to spend in Palenque, there are lots of other things to do there but the obvious reason to visit Palenque is the chance to see the Palenque ruins. So on our trip to Chiapas, we decided to spend one night there on our way to San Cristóbal de las Casas. Other than our visit to the ruins, we really didn’t have time to visit much else during our short stay in the modern town.
If we had known the pedestrian walkway across the street from the bus station would lead us directly to the Hotel Maya Tulipanes, we could have easily walked the one block there but the directions we had were for a car, which suggested a longer journey over several blocks so we hopped into a cab for the short ride there.
The Tulipanes is a comfortable tourist class hotel located in the La Cañada section of the town. The hotel hosts some bus tours but we liked the open air lobby/garden and after our tour of the ruins, enjoyed a swim in the pool. The room was decent in size, very clean and included free Wi-Fi. The restaurant was OK…not great; not bad
. The restaurant service was a little slow but all the hotel staff from the front desk to the restaurant to housekeeping was friendly.
In addition to being convenient to the bus station, La Cañada is a nice area for visitors to stay in. It’s a little removed from the town center but in the immediate area of the hotel is a nice coffee shop, multiple restaurants, shops and other hotels lining the cobble stone street. We walked down that street on our one evening in Palenque to have dinner at Restaurant Maya Cañada. It’s an attractive open air room and on the evening we visited, there was a guitarist playing tasteful music in one corner.
We appreciated the table setting with placemats woven in the Chiapas style.
The menu is a mix of Mexican, specialties of Chiapas and international selections and everything we ordered was good. So good in fact that we decided that rather than eat at the hotel, we would come back for breakfast the next morning and had another terrific meal. All the standards typical of a restaurant in Mexico were available.
The meal came with a nice fresh fruit plate and cups of delicious coffee made from beans grown and roasted locally in Chiapas. 
Being even more impressed with breakfast than we were with our dinner the night before, we went for the trifecta and ordered a couple plates to go that we carried with us and consumed during our bus ride to San Cristóbal.
Hotel Maya Tulipanes / Cañada 6, La Cañada, 29960 Palenque, Chis., Mexico / Phone:+52 916 345 0201
Restaurant Maya Cañada / Canada St. 6 | Ecotourist Center la Canada, Palenque 29960, Mexico / +52 916 345 0216