Santa Fe was not on our minds when we left on our trip almost 2 months ago but we have heard many good things about the area. Kind of cool to be on the original route 66. We also needed a fairly large town or city to take care of a few errands. One of our kayak racks had been compromised a few years ago in Kentucky and has started to give us worry. REI has an outlet in Santa Fe so, after our wonderful experience with them in the Houston area we figured we would give them our business. We also needed a Chevy dealer to fix the cover to our gas tank as it is falling off. Both items were indeed taken care of hear during our 4 night stay.
We opted to take a walking tour of the city given by the staff at the local history museum. Their fees and our subsequent tips all went to help fund the museum. This tour used ear pieces connected by blue tooth to the guides. Wonderful as the city noises did not interfere with our learning of historical knowledge. The building above is supposedly the nations longest standing and continuously running government building dating back to 1610. It is called the “Governor’s Palace”. The folks sitting outside are local indigenous artists that show up early to get one of these coveted free “spots” to sell their wares.
Many shopping areas in the city center are located inside a courtyard like the one above. There are many of these, but it’s deceiving because you can’t see these courtyard markets from the street. Hidden treasures everywhere. Very cool artwork by natives and non-natives alike. A good selection of local foods, too. Back in the day each courtyard was a hub of activity for the many families surrounding that courtyard. Imagine the scuttlebutt with everyone overlooking your comings and goings.
This old city is home to many famous churches like the one above named The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assis. Fabulous architecture to go along with the statue of its namesake.
One of the many irrigation ditches we found throughout the city. If you were on the good side of the water superintendent back in the day, the gates would be opened to your field to drain water off the main channel above. If you were not in good graces your crops would go un-watered.
The river above is actually the Santa Fe River. Not much too it right here but there is yet another irrigation ditch to its left.
In one of their downtown parks there is this bronze statue representing the livestock that the Spaniards introduced to the area in the sixteenth century. Horses, sheep, cattle, donkey and pigs. We were not aware that the horse is a relatively new animal to the Americas. All the pictures we conjure up of Indians riding horses are only accurate as of 4 or 5 hundred years ago. We also didn’t realize the Indians in North America had no concept called the wheel.
The city does a great job keeping up their public spaces. Still a bit hot for us around here in the summer but we did enjoy some people watching from under the shade trees.
The adobe style buildings throughout the city give Santa Fe a great vibe.
The Upper Crust pizza company provided lunch on our day of tourism in the area. Not as good as the name states and not as good as our homemade Ooni pizzas but not bad. Not sure why we keep trying to find good New York style pizza outside of the northeast?
The city has has created a unique artsy and historical culture that they are very proud to call Santa Fe! We will be back for some R&R in future for sure.