Templo de la Valenciana "San Cayetano"

We managed to get to the site of La valenciana mine only to find it closed due to a change of ownership. Disappointing considering all we'd heard about it and the fact that it produced (produces?) 1/5 of the world's silver. Still, we walked around the village near the mine, reluctantly toured a mining museum (my mom and defected from the terrifying underground tour), and walked to the nearby church. Here are some photos from the entrance to the church, which was a beautiful burnt orange color.

Recorrido de San Miguel

Here are photos from our day in San Miguel, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Guanajuato. Overall, it was very chic and had great food and shops, but seemed completely divorced from Mexico, basically like a little Santa Barbara sitting in the middle of Mexico. We ate at an amazing french restaurant...the goat cheese salad brought me back to my times in Nice! Overall it was cool to see San Miguel, but we were glad to come back to Guanajuato...especially glad to have survived a terrifying drive home along Mexican highways with the driver ominously crossing himself before every curve in the road!
Me at the Botanical Gardens in front of an amazing succulent.


View of the town

Wondering if the taxi would ever come pick us up from the Botanical Garden.

Ex-hacienda de San Gabriel de Barrera

One day we took a taxi to this intriguing place on the outskirts of the city. I didn't really have any expectations, which made "finding" this cool place thrilling. After the constant flow of people and cars in downtown Guanajuato, the quiet and green of this huge estate here were a complete shock.

The hacienda belonged to one of the first gold mining barons, Barrera, who built towering brick structures to clean the ore from his mines. After amassing a huge fortune, he began work on the house, grounds, and chapel, which is literally coated in gold. When the hacienda was taken over by new owners following the Independence, they decided to create 17 gardens in between the brick walls of the mining areas. The gardens are gorgeous and ornate, each of them with a different theme: Spanish, Baroque, Italian, Moroccan, English, etc.


I loved the Roman garden

Cool tile work

The hideous gold chapel

Vistas de Guanajuato

Like Valparaíso, Guanajuato has funiculares, or "acensores," which are little elevators with a view that take you up the steepest hills of the city for a small fee. People who live at the top and don't want to carry their groceries up a hill or climb up after a long day at work pay for the acensor just like paying for a bus. This acensor, which went up to El pipila momument, was really touristy though. Here are some of the views from the top.

Noche en la terraza

We decided to watch the fireworks and drink cactus fruit liqueur from the rooftop of our hotel one night. We couldn't really see the fireworks, and the liqueur was like cough syrup x10, but it was still a good time. The beautiful view of the cerros made me oddly nostalgic for Valparaíso.