Sunday, March 28, 2004
After weeks of silence due to a variety of business related causes, I have finally found the time to tell the story of my trip to the town of Guanajuato in early March. Guanajuato is well known for the arts festival Festival Cervantino which takes place every year in October since 1972 and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. The town is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site with fine examples of baroque style architecture.
A comfortable way to travel to Guanajuato from Mexico D.F. is to take an ETN (Enlaces Terrestres Nacionales, tel. 01 55 5277 6529) luxury bus leaving from Central Norte. The price is not cheap at Pesos $320 per person, one-way, but given the prospect of spending 5 hours looking at some rather dull scenery, the fully reclinable seats are worth the extra expense.
In Guanajuato, I can wholeheartedly recommend the hotel Parador San Javier for its lovely garden, original vaulted rooms (ask for rooms with numbers 100-110), friendly staff and peaceful location, yet close (20 minutes walk) from the old town. A double room costs between Pesos $795 and $995 in the low season. However, you are better off avoiding the restaurant which serves rather bland food.
The town is best explored walking, getting lost in the twisting streets, discovering at random the many monuments of Guanajuato. Frommers have a rather good, though short, online guide of Guanajuato. For spectacular pictures it is worth taking the funicular up to the statue of El Pipila which dominates Guanajuato and offers an ideal spot to shoot many postcard-pretty photos. Just don't fall in the tourist trap restaurant El Gallo Pitagórico: the view from some tables is nice indeed, but the food is miserable and the service runs at snail's pace!
For shopping, very close to the hotel is a charming place called Bazar de la Hacienda with lots of original furniture and other decorative items from Mexico. Having said that, San Miguel de Allende does seem to have more options available for arts and crafts shopping.
No visit of Guanajuato would be complete without seeing the impressive church of La Valenciana, located a few minutes drive from downtown. Overall, Guanajuato is blessed with fine buildings and monuments as well as an interesting location, but lacks a "special atmosphere" (at least outside of the Cervantino festival), coming across as a sleepy provincial town with a rich history.
