Advertisement
Published: January 15th 2017
Edit Blog Post
After a pleasantly short flight from LA on Volaris, a small Mexican airline with great service, we arrived in Leon, where the immigration line took an hour. We were the only non-Hispanics on the flight, but most of the passengers were American citizens. Our shuttle driver was patiently, but somewhat unhappily, waiting for us outside. We had an artist couple from Marfa, Texas in the van with us. Their driver had not shown up, so they asked our driver for a ride. A good friend of theirs is named Beebe, so they had noticed the "Lynn Beebe" sign right away! We ran into them again today, and will get together near the end of our stay when they return to San Miguel.
Because our flight was late and and the immigration process took so long, we arrived after dark and didn't get see the colors of San Miguel until today. It is a very safe town, so walking around last night, looking for place to eat and getting lost, wasn't a problem. Once we were in the centro, I stopped a well-dressed couple and asked for a restaurant recommendation. We were sent to the Berlin Bar where we had a
delicious fish dinner, cervesas, and dessert for under $30...
Today we shopped for food supplies, walked around the historic district, and then Bill found a place to watch the Seahawks lose, while I went to a nearby market (no tourists at all; only Mexicans). I love Mexican markets, but the stuff for sale is getting to be the same everywhere now...a downside of globalization...I bought fruit, flowers, and on the way home, a pottery bowl from a girl on the street corner.
Tonight we attended an Afro-Columbian concert in a small theater run by Americans. The musicians were Columbian, French-American, and Mexican. They were all talented, but the female singer was fabulous!
The town is beautiful, and a mix of old and new, modern and traditional. There are fewer American and European tourists here than in other colonial cities, it seems, and many more ex-pats or part time residents. This being the weekend, there are many Mexican tourists in town, and several weddings. We will do more walking tomorrow, and I start Spanish classes on Monday...
San Miguel is important to Mexicans for the part this area played in the Revolution; sort of the Boston of
Mexico. The indigenous people who lived around mostly fled from the Spanish, leaving the area to Spanish settlers. The town (named San Miguel de los Chichimecas) was founded in 1542 by a Franciscan friar, grew bigger when silver was discovered nearby, was abandoned after attacks by indigenous groups in the 1550's, re-established in 1555, and then grew to a wealthy city of 15,000 by 1683, when the Cathedral was commissioned. Ignacio Allende led the revolt against the Spanish from here in 1810. The town was largely destroyed during the Revolution, and silver production as faded away, leaving the town with less than 5000 residents by 1821. It was renamed San Miguel de Allende in 1826 and slumbered for the next 100 years. I'll write about the modern history in the next blog.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.055s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 12; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0302s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Carol McClain
non-member comment
A town of no secrets.....
Almost too jealous to comment! You're in one of our favorite regions of Mexico, We visited San Miguel for a few days in 2003.....many expats living there......and imagine that there must be many changes. However, we spent most of our vacation in nearby Guanajuato. Hope you get to visit that city. What a nice way to spend January! Wish we were there. Carol and Martin