August is a nice time to visit Guanajuato. It's the off-season so the locals remark how uncrowded it is. My goodness, I'd hate to see it any busier - the streets and the sidewalks were just packed. It is a hilly city, and its historic district is full of narrow streets and a network of tunnels below street level (some to allow for drainage, some to accomodate traffic). All the topography, Spanish Colonial buildings, fountains and sculptures make for a lot of visual texture.
The August weather was highly entertaining: pleasantly cool and dry relative to Mazatlan's tropical climate; yet every day like clockwork big
clouds would begin to pile up about noon, warning you that you had about an hour to finish your turismo and seek shelter or get very, very wet when the inevitable thunderstorm arrived in midafternoon. By happy hour the storm would pass so that visitors like us could continue our sightseeing and people-watching from the umbrella-covered comfort of the premises of a purveyor of fine martinis. I have never before experienced such considerate weather. I like this city.
The arts are alive and well in Guanajuato - the historic center has two theatres, open-air music performances of all kinds, and several museums all within easy walking distance of one another. GB found a karate dojo. A botanical garden surrounding a former hacienda is accessible by taxicab, as is the Museum of Mummies if your tastes run to the macabre. If you enjoy religious art, you will spend a few days just visiting the ever-so-many churches within the historic district. You can have your pick of Spanish classes; or take a bus or taxi up into the city's hills to tour the oldest section of the Valenciana silver mine. There's even a Cervantes festival here every year. Guanajuato loves it some Don Quixote.
Guanajuato's oldest house dates from the 16th century and is now a museum/gallery (El Museo del Pueblo) featuring everything from Mesoamerican ceramics to modern art like this here naked lady riding a dragon (or is that a winged demon entity?). A few rooms have had their original stenciled wall trim restored, and two of them plus the house's chapel still have their original terra cotta and tile floors. Think that linoleum in your kitchen will last 500 years?
The granary with all its bullet holes from the 1810 revolution is also now a
museum that chronicles Mexico's and the region's history from pre-European contact, through the Colonial and revolutionary periods, to industrialization and the present day. If you can see only one museum in Guanajuato, it will be difficult to choose between the Museo del Pueblo and the granary. Personally, I'm a big fan of everything from Neolithic artifacts to pre-contact textiles and ceramics, and GB's more partial to recent military history. So we see a lot of museums wherever we go. In Guanajuato, we both get satisfied.
If fresh food is more to your liking, Guanajuato's old central market, Mercado Hidalgo, was designed by Gustave Eiffel but was originally intended to be a train station. Sadly, no trains ever chugged through it, but the structure has an upper level which is a great vantage point for sightseeing. (President Porfirio Diaz was quite the Francophile and during his administration around the turn of the 20th century Mexico purchased (commissioned?) several Eiffel structures - such as the pre-fab church you can visit in Santa Rosalia on the Baja peninsula, and Guanajuato's mercado.)
Take some time to travel to Guanajuato - whether it's your only destination in Mexico, or if you're trying to get some relief from the summer heat and humidity along the coast. We'll likely spend a second cruising season in the Sea of Cortez, and if we spend another hurricane season in Mazatlan we'll certainly want to make a second visit to Guanajuato and hopefully spend more time there. It's just too nearby not to take another bus trip there.
m
What a great set of pictures :) Thank you for sharing. I really enjoy your posts.
Posted by: SPINNAK3R CW | September 22, 2008 at 01:42 PM