1 Photo
1 / 1
AAA Editor Notes
Malecón Sculptures dot the boardwalk along Paseo Díaz Ordáz. Walking from south to north, you'll see a beautiful collection of bronze public sculptures that includes the “Fountain of Friendship” (Fuente de la Amistad), a dome-shaped fountain crowned with three leaping dolphins. The romantic “Triton & Nereida” depicts the son of Neptune reaching for his mermaid lover, perched atop a curling wave just beyond his grasp.

A Vallarta icon, “El Caballito del Mar” is the famous statue of a young boy riding a seahorse. Farther along the sculptures take a surrealistic turn. “In Search of Reason,” by Guadalajara artist Sergio Bustamente, features a ladder to nowhere being climbed by two pillow-headed children. Perhaps the malecón's strangest installation is Alejandro Colunga's “Rotunda of the Sea” (La Rotunda del Mar); ringed by alien creatures with twisted shapes that form high-backed chairs, this is by far Vallarta's most bizarre photo-op. Nearby is an 8-foot-high, Dali-esque statue of a man filling his black obsidian pot belly with rocks; Jonás Gutierrez's 2006 installation is called “Eating Stones” (Come Piedras).

At the northern end is Mathis Lidice's “Millennium”; a wave twists and arcs toward the sky, topped by a female figure releasing a dove to the heavens. The sculpture represents “the feminine energy that will lead us into a new age.”

Map
Get Directions