Guadalajara is too big to see in the few days we’d alloted. But, when we took the bus there from Mazatlan we concentrated on the central Historic District for 4 days so got an idea of what the the city might have been like, from the pre-columbian era to the Spanish conquest to the Industrial Revolution and beyond (pick your poison). 
Hotel Frances is located just off the central plaza between the cathedral and the Degollado Theatre, so staying there we were comfortably in the thick of things. (Bring earplugs, though – the better to resist the lure of music from the Hotel Frances bar, the disco next door, and the plaza a block away – a city like Gudalajara never sleeps, but maybe you should.)
If you go to Guadalajara please take time to see the Regional Museum, the City Museum, and the museum(s) in the Cabanas Cultural Institute
in the Historic District. Please spend one day for each museum – as otherwise you’ll just get information overload. The Regional Museum handles everything from fossils found in Jalisco state (including an almost-complete wooly mammoth skeleton, which – awesome), to 
pre-columbian artifacts found throughout Mexico, to the modern political and industrial development eras in Mexico. Go to the Regional Museum. Plus, a couple days later we got really lucky at the City Museum: it was a slow Sunday morning, so the docent who had nothing better to do guided us personally through the whole museum, adding his own family’s history to what the exhibits described. Travel tip: just a little bit of Spanish-speaking ability can provide a much richer experience than what you otherwise may have. Study a little, mis amigos!
If you don’t like museums, just groove to the public sculpture that’s everywhere – either bronze sculptures traditional or modern; or fallen heroes (including female founders, thank you). Here we have the Guadalajara coat of arms done in bronze 8 feet high; a nicely-maintained doorway; a Founding Mother; and o-so-much art:
If sculpture is not your cup of tea, go straight to the wall and ceiling murals in the main building of the Cabanas Cultural Institute – check out the industrialized conquistador’s war-horse, for example:
Or perhaps the Cabanas showpiece, ‘Man on Fire" – which, interpret it as you may because I’m still baffled as to significance:
Guadalajara – a Travel Destination.
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