San Miguel de Allende

We spent two nights, & one and a half days in Guanajuato. Sunday, also Ben's birthday, we had our splendid breakfast in the city, then checked out of our airbnb, hopped in our rental car, got lost in the tunnels of Guanajuato, and eventually made it to the highway to drive to San Miguel de Allende. About fifteen miles out of the city, we stopped at Templo de Valencia because someone recommended seeing inside the cathedral. It did not disappoint: there was a TON of gold!

 The outside of the cathedral

 The spectacular inside

 View of the countryside. This is such a beautiful region of Mexico!

Thankfully, when we arrived in San Miguel, we discovered that our airbnb was much nicer than our last one! It was clean, quiet, beautifully decorated, and Ben and I even got a queen bed!

The garden outside of our rented home.

Aren't the birds of paradise awesome?

After loving Guanajuato so much, we were a bit dubious that we would enjoy San Miguel as well. However, it was another fantastic city. It's more European feeling than Guanajuato and lacks the vibrant colors; however, I enjoyed the more subdued colors and clean lines of this new city.

 Each door post had ornate wrought iron lanterns and a lot had these dried flowered swags...as if each door was pretty enough on its own!

Beautiful streets

The streets were cobblestone, and were wider and more orderly than those of Guanajuato.

 The cathedral in San Miguel is the main event! 

 The inside.

We changed up things a bit during our afternoon in San Miguel: Ben took the boys to play in a park and I got some alone time to roam the streets and the artisan market. My brain was tired and needed a kid break. Ben is so good to me! 

 The big tourist souvenir was these dried flowered headbands and halos for the women. All the ladies spent the day posing in front of the cathedral with their flower wreaths. I was dying for a daughter to buy one for and eventually bought one for myself and Nate and Holly's girls. 

Market food

Mexican fruit is the best! 

Flowers everywhere in the city of eternal spring.

It felt like there were cathedrals and squares with cool statues on every corner.

We all reconvened for Ben's birthday dinner at a cool little Peruvian restaurant. Ben (who traveled to Peru when he was 10) couldn't wait for the boys to try Inca Cola (special soda from Peru). Each of the boys got a whole can and loved it (check back in with us later that night when 2 out of 3 boys were awake until midnight because of the caffeine). Despite the consequences of the Inca Cola, it was still a delightful dinner.

We moseyed back to the main square together. In my opinion, this was the most picturesque street in San Miguel.  

 Unfortunately, it was also a fairly busy street, so hard to get a stranger-less family picture. Maybe my mom can photo shop the people out for me.

 Cropped 'em out of this one, but I prefer us centered on the street.

Walking back the cathedral...just another beautiful wall.

 Sweet lighting on the cathedral.

 It was hard to decide which lighting made the cathedral look best. In fact, I liked it all. We sat in the square for over an hour that evening just watching the sky turn dark and the moon move over the cathedral. It as wonderful. 

Which is your favorite?

 Meanwhile, we bought our boys this giant torpedo balloon-thing which turned out to be hours of entertainment. Basically they would slam the flat end down on the pavement and it would shoot up  into the air and they run like banshees to catch it. Thankfully, ours weren't the only unruly kids doing this in the square. It was fun for the kids to just play and not be tourists.

Such a fun birthday with my love!

The next day we woke up TIRED, but still fairly early thanks to those beautiful church bells ringing. Sleep was not our strong-point this trip. Thankfully, food was: we found this amazing cafe that gave us not only a great breakfast, but an unbelievable view.  

 Rooftop terraces for restaurants is very common in San Miguel. 

 We needed a break from city walking, so found the library which just happens to have the largest collection of English books in Mexico. Boys were we envious--we have nothing like this in Monterrey!

 We spent almost two hours just reading and resting. It was just what our weary travel souls needed. 

 We headed to the square one last time and I found my perfect dried-flower halo.  

 On the walk back to our airbnb

 Another picturesque street

 I love Mexico for it's colors.

 That afternoon we drove up to the scenic overlook for one last look of San Miguel de Allende before driving on to our final destination: Queretaro. We drank in the scene and then found an awesome family-ran taco stand to fill our bellies before the drive. 

While Guanajuato was my favorite city of our trip, I would still return to San Miguel de Allende in a heartbeat! I could have spent weeks there and been thrilled, Reviews of the city had complained that there was too many American retirees there, but we didn't really agree. Although you did see many white-haired Americans on the streets, Mexicans were definitely still the majority. And hey, we understand why there were so many retired Americans there: perfect spring-like weather year round, awesome food, beautiful streets and buildings, and a HUGE library. Maybe we'll spend some of our retired years there! San Miguel was clean, artistic, and just plain beautiful. 

Guanajuato

We have a list of Mexican places that we want to visit during our tenure here and Guanajuato was on the top of that list. So, when we found out that the twins were going to start school a week later than anticipated, we booked last minute plane tickets and housing to the colonial region of Mexico. 

We left our house at about 5 pm on Friday evening for our 7:30 pm flight and sat in some of the worst traffic we have seen in Monterrey. We arrived at the airport in a bit of a rush and scrambled to find food for dinner (not as easy feat for a family with food allergies). The cafe we ordered from messed up our order twice; by that time we didn't have a moment to spare, so we took the incorrect food and hustled to board our flight. The flight was only about an hour and then we rented a car and drove in darkness about 35 minutes to Guanajuato. We had read about the city, but were not prepared for the crazy drive up the hill to our house through narrow, alley-like cobblestone streets and windy, fascinating tunnels. It honestly felt like a Disneyland ride. We laughed and oohed and awed at the tunnels, gawked at the old buildings, and were amazed by the amount of people out on the streets. This was starting to feel like a real adventure! Therefore, although we arrived at our airbnb house around 10 pm tired, with bellies only somewhat full of jerky and granola bars for dinner, and a little flustered from the crazy evening of travel, we were super excited about exploring the city the next day. 

Unfortunately, the house we rented was a dump. We must have been paying for the view, because the rest of the place was a disaster. One of the boys' first trips to the bathroom we discovered a scorpion and then we discovered another one in the kitchen the next morning. The house was dirty, the beds were small and terribly uncomfortable, and dogs literally barked non-stop until 2 am. Not the greatest way to start out a vacation.

Night time view from our house

Scorpion in the bathroom. Being from the Pacific NW, naturally we know nothing about scorpions and were googling information about them, thinking that because this one was small, it was no big deal. Well, the small ones apparently are often more poisonous.

Sunrise view from our house

The next morning within minutes of walking down the hill to Guanajuato, all woes of a horrible night's sleep were forgotten. This city is seriously amazing. We were in awe and absolutely loved everything about it. 

First views of the center as we walked down the hill.

The university; so grand and beautiful.

My kids are hilarious. 

Church in the main square.

All around the main plaza are these trees that are pruned for optimal shade. It's really neat.

We had a great time just hanging out in the square, people watching, listening to street musicians. Later that night, the plaza would be even more full of people and marache bands were playing in every restaurant. 

 It's so rare that Joshy will cuddle!

Checking out one of the driving tunnels. 

One of my favorite walls of the city.

After checking out the main plaza, we took the funicular up to a famous statue and and the spectacular view of the whole city.

Cool, massive statue.

Isn't that amazing? (University is the big white building)

Apparently when they were making the Disney movie "Coco" they used the colors of Guanajuato as an inspiration.

Josh isn't really into normal picture taking poses right now.

Our kids are old enough to take pictures of us! (and also to photo bomb us, which Seth did the first picture). 

We hung around at the top of the hill for quite some time. All the boys purchased rocks as a souvenir and I found an artist who was selling the most amazing prints and bookmarks for SO cheap. Then we took the funicular back down to explore more of the city. 

There were so many picture worthy places. This was definitely one of my favorite plazas.

Just look at the colors and beauty of the architecture and fountain.

Seth got quite the surprise when we went to check out this statue...and it moved! 

He was a street performer (similar to the "silver men" in Seattle) and we all laughed and laughed about Seth being so started by him. Josh wouldn't go near him, but the big boys participated in some pretend tea drinking for the picture.

Next we checked out the main cathedral in town.

Our kids got lots of practice of going into churches quietly and respectfully this trip.

It was quite beautiful inside. 

By that point we were pretty foot-weary and ready for a rest. While we waited for the taco place we wanted to eat at to open (at 2 pm...because that's what time you eat lunch in Mexico), we hung out in the coolest Starbucks sitting area ever and played Uno together. It was one of those moments that I never want to forget. 

After lunch we wearily trudged up the hill to the house for a bit of a rest. On the way, Ben and the boys raced up the university steps.

Later that evening we explored more of the city. Here is another of the tunnels.

Check out the houses built on stilts!

Look at the color of the houses on the hill.

We visited the "kissing alley" (note how close the two balconies are to one another). It's a famous place in the city and there was a line for pictures in the alley, so we opted out. 

Favorite alley way of the trip. 

Stairs leading up to our dinner restaurant. Another favorite activity of the this trip was writing restaurant reviews together on google maps. It was fun to have the kids participate in how many stars to vote for, as well as taking pictures of their dishes. Our kids have become quite the "foodies." 

 We finished up our day with ice cream on a terrace that had this view.

 And this view. 

Our total distance walked on day one was 4.9 miles and 28 floors! Thankfully that helped us all be entirely exhausted and sleep a little better despite the uncomfortable nature of our house. The next day, Sunday, was Ben's birthday! What a fun thing to celebrate his birthday on this little adventure. We went to a super cool cafe for breakfast, Cafe de la Vie, a place inspired by Paris. It did not disappoint and ended up being one of our favorite restaurants of the trip. 

Birthday boy!

 Nice, Josh, real nice.

The view out of the window.

 "This hot chocolate is spectacular!"  Josh exclaimed when he drank his hot chocolate.

 We asked them to make up a simple meat and fruit plate for Josh and this is what they came out with! The chef went above and beyond!

While we were finishing up eating, we heard a band in the street! Luckily, after we finished up, we found them on the steps of the main theater. It was the town orchestra performing a concert. It was so cool. Another favorite memory of the trip.

 Band behind the boys sitting by the letters. (Can you find Josh? He's blending in.)

 Last views of the city before we left for our next destination. 

Summary of Guanajuato: it is a MUST visit place. We loved it. I hope to return again with parents and then again when Ben and I are old and retired and we can stay for an extended time. It was just that special. This region of Mexico is known for being a place of "eternal spring" and it truly was. All the flowers were blooming like it was springtime and the temperatures never exceeded 80 degrees, with the nights being in the high 50s. It was such a pleasant break from the heat of Monterrey.