Well that was the plan… we want to LIVE on the road. But… we also want to see everything. We did find that on the beach in Bucerias which now feels like a second home. But we only had 4 days in Guadalajara. That means we have to go go go to see everything. 1 day for a market/mural/city tour, 1 day for Tlaquepaque, and 1 day for Tequila. Then it is time to bus to Guanajuanto and we only have 3 nights here. Lots of art to see, food to eat and more museums. Maybe when we get to San Miguel de Allende we can start to slow down.
Lets start with Guadalajara.
I had been to Guadalajara on a family trip in the early 80’s and we stayed in the historical center. That was 40 years ago…. and we stayed in the center again and nothing had seemed to change. Same architecture, 500 year old cathedral, and an enormous market with some great street food. We also enjoyed an AirBnB experience tour that showed us some of the great Orozco murals.
We are used to big cities and everything feeling so rushed. We quickly figured out the metro and how to get around. The first night M found us a beer restaurant where the table next to us started singing to the piano music at the top of their lungs. Opera style in an echoey stone wall room that felt like a basement. Great experience.
The next day we checked out the arts and crafts town of Tlaquepaque.
We usually don’t buy anything because of our lack of carrying space (we travel with luggage that fits in overhead bins). But M found an awesome necklace in the Sergio Bustamante gallery. We browsed the other stores and absorbed the artsy vibes of Tlaquepaque before we headed back on the light rail.
The next day we reserved an AirBnb Experience tour to the town of Tequila which included some distillery tours. Things didn’t go to plan. First, the tour host cancelled on us because his rental van wasn’t available. We decided to take the bus instead and find some tours once we got there. The 1.5 hour ride turned into over 3 hours to get there because of multiple accidents on the freeway. We we got there, all the tours seemed to be in Spanish until we finally found the huge Jose Cuervo factory.
We learned the tequila making process but didn’t get the personal tasting experience that we would have gotten on some of the smaller distillery tours. It didn’t feel like the wine tastings that we are so used to…. But we did wander around time until we decided to take the long bus ride back to Guadalajara.
The next day, it was now time for our next stop Guanajuato- another 4 hour bus ride that didn’t leave until 3:30 pm. We first had time for another art museum and another Orozco mural. We are blown away by the quality of Mexican art. When we got on our bus, they informed us that our tickets were for the wrong day. I clearly had told the lady “Sabado” (Saturday) when I bought them a couple of days ago but we never checked the tickets and we actually bought Thursday bus tickets. oops… another victim of my Spanish language inadequacies. There was room on the bus anyway and it just cost us another $60. Oh well…
Now it is time for one of the most beautiful cities in Mexico- Guanajuato.
We can’t believe we are not in Europe. This reminds us so much of towns we visited in Italy (Tuscany and Umbria), as well as Southern Spain (Arcos and Ronda). Everything is clean, with bright colors and fantastic architecture. The town is in a valley between hills and many of the local roads are underground in tunnels. This means that a lot of the town is very pedestrian friendly. We got here on Saturday night and our Airbnb is in an area with a lot of hip lively restaurants and bars. They didn’t calm down until 5am ( I wouldn’t know, I sleep through everything but M told me so…). It is a tourist town as well as a college town and it is really busy right now. Lots of good food and TONS of good art. We saw the Diego Rivera birthplace house and museum, and the contemporary art museum and a lot of amazing galleries. We might want to come back here to buy some stuff if we ever buy a real house to put things in…. We have plans to visit more art, history and maybe a mummy museum before our next stop of San Miguel de Allende. We have a week there so we might learn to slow down…