Tuesday 16th June - Santa Fe

Santa Fe - we love it too! The city has the honour of being the oldest State Capital in the USA and also has the oldest building and oldest church. It was founded by Spanish Missionaries in 1610 - before the Pilgrim Fathers reached the eastern shores.

We left Albuquerque yesterday (Monday) on the 10.37am ‘Rail Runner’ a new rail system between Albuquerque and Santa Fe opened only last year. The fare for the one and a half hour journey was the princely sum of $4! It was an interesting journey and the taking of photographs was prohibited whilst travelling through Indian Reservations. It seems strange that there are no raised platforms on stations here (not the ones we have seen so far anyway) so when the train slowly came into the station on the outside track we just wandered across to board it. The train was very crowded and we had to lug our suitcases up a couple of short flights of stairs to get to the upper deck. Never again! We arrived in Santa Fe not having a clue where to go and there were no taxis in sight, so we stood there for a while wondering what to do. Then luckily a taxi came into the parking lot - an appointment to pick someone else up, but the kind lady driver contacted ‘base’ and a cab came to collect us within 5 minutes. Our hotel is about 4 miles out of the centre of the town - most hotels are. The few in the town centre are very expensive. The hotel is situated on a very busy main road into town but luckily the hotel is very quiet. After checking in we wandered out to get some lunch locally and discovered a local bus runs every 15 minutes or so into the town centre. So after a snack we got the bus into town and were impressed to see a bike rack on the front and noticed several passengers making use of it. We headed straight for the Central Plaza, the centre of the town from which all streets seem to radiate. The buildings are lovely - all adobe and mainly Spanish Peublo style. After a law was passed in 1957, all new building has to be in this style and no higher than 37 feet. (All buildings in New Mexico are low - the highest ‘skyscraper’ is in Albuquerque and is only 22 storeys high). So Santa Fe is really keeping it’s original character. We returned to the hotel after wandering around the shops for a couple of hours. The shops are, needless to say, mainly tourist traps and most of them are Indian craft shops and the ethnic goods (jewellery, pottery, leather goods etc) on sale were lovely and very tempting.

Today, we did a 'city tour' of Santa Fe, to get our bearings. The tour guide, Gary, was an interesting character with a soft, mid-west accent and dry sense of humour. He gave us an overview of the history of Santa Fe and its most significant buildings. One, the Palace of the Governors, is the oldest building in America. Under a portico of this building Native Americans sit on the pavement selling their wares (only local tribes are allowed to do this). Again it was mostly jewellery and pottery on sale.The highlight of the tour, was a meander down Canyon Road. Nearly all the old homes have been converted into art and sculpture galleries. They are grouped around delightful courtyards, overhung by trees and bright with flowers. Within the courtyards are many beautiful sculptures, from the traditional to abstract, to whimsical and quirky. We could easily have spent a whole day in that street alone.

These colourful 'wind sculptures' all move and whizz around in the wind

I love the way this beautiful bronze girl has real flowers growing in her basket

This elegant Indian lady's 'cloak' is actually a beautiful bronze patchwork quilt

After lunch in yet another Mexican café, we visited the New Mexico Museum of Art and saw a video and exhibition of American impressionists.

The journey back to the hotel by bus was an interesting experience in itself. People-watching here is an endless delight. Most of the local people seem to be Mexican or Native American and all seem to be colourful and eccentric characters - at least that is how it seems to us. Nobody appears to be boring or ordinary, either in appearance or behaviour.

We were thrilled to see a colony of little native prairie dogs just along the road from our hotel.

Albuquerque and Santa Fe were just lovely places to visit and with less than two days in each we only scratched the surface of all there is to see here. I think maybe a couple of weeks in New Mexico could well be on the cards!