I’ve recently come back from some much needed rest and relaxation down in Mexico at my parent’s house. My brother came down from New York and we got the chance to just hang out and chat about life, which we haven’t really done in a while. Mostly it was a lot of eating and sleeping for the first couple of days — very needed. Of course, we did make it to the hot springs just outside of town one morning, an absolute must when visiting San Miguel de Allende.
Another highlight was a quick trip up to Zacatecas, the heart of the old silver mining area in Mexico. It’s a nice little city (about 150,000 people) with lots of little squares filled with music in the evenings, a beautiful old theatre and, of course, plenty of churches to see. One was quite interesting due to the three inscriptions above the door in Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic. The Arabic said “In the name of God” and we later got the Hebrew translated into something like “the house of god.” We asked inside and apparently after extensive consultations in the records, nobody can figure out why the three inscriptions are there.
Zacatecas is also home to two wonderful museums housing the collections of Pedro and Raphael Coronel. The brothers were both artists in their own right, but also collected fabulous pieces of work. Pedro Coronel had pieces from all over the world, but his collection of European masters, including Picasso, Dali and Kandinsky is extensive. Raphael’s museum is noteworthy because he collected masks from all over Mexico, resulting in a stunning collection of over 5,000 masks. Both museums are housed in wonderful old colonial era buildings, making them a real joy to visit. We did miss the abstract art museum, but I’ve been told it is also worth seeing.
If you get the chance to visit, you should also stop in to the high end Quinta Real hotel. It is built into the old bullring next to the old aqueduct, giving it a charm that is hard to top. We decided to go there for breakfast one morning. Given the fruit they serve at the beginning, the included coffee and juice, and the portions, it was actually reasonably priced (about 12-15 dollars per person).
Overall, Zacatecas was a great place to spend a couple of days. I would have wanted one more day perhaps to see the other museum and to be able to visit the old silver mine, but perhaps that will wait for next time.
The second weekend back in San Miguel was spent going to a great concert by some local musicians (with my brother sitting in on percussion for one tune) and a get together with my best friend RPV who has been down in Mexico from Vancouver for a couple of weeks now visiting his family. We had him and his mom over for the afternoon and spent a wonderful time together.
As always, I tried to take some pics and they can be seen by clicking the one below.
