Guanajuato Continues to Charm

Okay, I admit it:  I love Guanajuato!  It has just about everything I like in a travel destination.

I think of it as sort of like the Venice of Mexico, though it's not near the sea and it doesn't have canals and singing gondola men.  But it's built in rough hill country, and there is a whole network of road tunnels connecting parts of the town.

What it does have in droves is charming old world ambience and many pedestrian-only streets and lanes, so it's perfect for street performances, strolling, people watching, al fresco dining, and all the other things car-free areas are good for.

Some of the pedestrian lanes, known here as callejones, are so narrow it's a bit of a squeeze for two people to pass each other.   One famous lane is called Callejone de Beso because two people can be in buildings across from each other, but still be close enough to kiss.

In colonial times, Guanajuato was an important center of silver mining, and you can still tour the old mines today.

But these days the town is a vibrant arts center with several beautiful theaters including the Teatro Juarez, an imposing old opera palace.

Guanajuato is also a major student center with an important university in town, so naturally there are lots of young people.  Some of these youngsters join traditional choral societies, known as callejoneadas or estudiantinas, who dress up in elaborate old world costumes and serenade the public in those same narrow walkways on Friday and Saturday evenings.

And there are plenty of mariachi groups here, as well, so if you like the old world street life as much as I do, you can see why I've made Guanajuato a must-see destination on all three of my trips to Mexico.

Guanajuato is also the home town of Frida Kahlo's husband, muralist Diego Rivera.  His childhood home is now a museum which I visited on a previous trip.

In one of the little plazuelas here there is a Frida y Diego Restaurant & Bar, and I can confirm they make a mean espresso.  Their menu also features a desayunos (breakfast) "Frida", but none for poor Diego. . .

Just as I discovered in Queretaro last week, Guanajuato is in the midst of a free arts festival featuring theater performers, jazz musicians, clowns, performance artists, and others.  Something is happening here, somewhere sometime, everyday this month.

That reminds me that I met one of the groups booked at the Queretaro festival last weekend, an international trio of stage performers based in Berlin called The Garden Project.  This features two men, an Australian and a Greek, plus a woman from Poland.

I caught some of their show onstage outdoors on Sunday night.  It was a very strange collage of dance, video, music, and light, but what was most interesting was The Garden Project's collaboration with a local group of like-minded artists.

I met two of  The Garden Project at breakfast one morning, and mentioned that Guanajuato might be a good place for them to check out for future bookings.

Regrettably, they said they were headed straight back to Berlin on Monday morning so didn't have a chance to explore any more of beautiful old Mexico.