Entries about restaurants

I finished my previous post just as we arrived at the Lyab-i-Hauz during our tour of Bukhara. It was lunch-time, and as the meal wasn’t included in the tour, we split up to eat, or at least that was the plan. As it happened quite a few of us headed for the same restaurant, a chaikana on the north-western side of the pool. We found a table in the rather grandly decorated but cool interior, where air-conditioning providing welcome relief from the intense sun. We shared some salads, a basket full of great bread (both the flaky pastry and more usual varieties), sparkling water and Sprite.

Khodja

We met up again with our guide by the statue of Khodja on the eastern side of the Lyab-i-Hauz. This bronze statue stands among the trees (so hard to photograph, or so I found) and depicts Khodja Nasreddin, the wise fool who features in so many stories of this region, riding his donkey. The donkey’s ears are shiny where children have clutched them as they scramble up to ‘ride’ with Khodja.

Our guide Marat loved to tell us Khodja stories to while away the long bus journeys between the Silk Road cities. Here’s one I remember:

One day a man tried to steal Khodja’s donkey, but he threatened the thief: ‘If you steal my donkey, I’ll have to do what my father did when someone stole his.’ The thief was frightened and ran away. Some bystanders asked Khodja, ‘What did your father do when someone stole his donkey?’ And Khodja replied, ‘He walked home.’

And another:

Khodja borrowed a cauldron from his neighbour. When he didn't return it for a long time, the neighbour came to ask for its return. When Khodja handed him the cauldron, the neighbour noticed that there was a small pot in it. ‘What is this?’, he asked.

‘Congratulations neighbour, your cauldron gave birth to a baby pot,’ replied Khodja. The neighbour, incredulous but delighted, thanked Khodja and took his cauldron and the new little pot home. A few weeks later Khodja came to ask again if he might borrow the cauldron. The neighbour didn't hesitate to lend it, however, again Khodja failed to return it. The neighbour had no choice but to go asking for it again.

‘Khodja, have you finished with my cauldron?’

‘Ah neighbour,’ bemoaned Khodja, ‘I am afraid your cauldron is dead.’

‘But that's not possible, a cauldron cannot die!’, exclaimed the neighbour. But Khodja had his answer ready: ‘My friend, you can believe that a cauldron can give birth; why than can't you believe that it can also die?’

Nadir Divanbegi Madrassah

Last night Chris and I had seen the Nadir Divanbegi Khanagha, which our guide now pointed out, telling us the story of the finance minister and his ungrateful wife. On the opposite side of Lyab-i-Hauz, a few years later, Nadir Divanbegi built a madrassah to complement the khanagha. Or so it appears, but our guide explained that this was not his original plan. This building was intended as a caravanserai, where trade would provide a good income for him. But soon after its completion the Khan was passing and commended the divanbegi on his great religious devotion, having taken it to be a madrassah. You didn’t argue with a khan, who was considered Allah’s representative, so the divanbegi had to change his plans and adjust the building to be used as a seminary, although without the usual accompanying mosque.

Perhaps this story explains the dramatic departure from Islamic tradition in the use of images of living creatures in the decoration on its portal. Admittedly these can be taken as mythological beasts – they certainly don’t resemble any real birds – but even so they are an unusual sight, as are the white does clasped in their claws (these are not pigs by the way, despite a slight resemblance, as this would certainly be unacceptable on an Islamic building of any sort, let alone a religious one).

As in so many of Uzbekistan’s former religious buildings this one is now devoted to the sale of handicrafts and souvenirs. We didn’t go inside but I imagine that they are of a similar quality to elsewhere. The main attraction for me was this striking façade with its total and flamboyant break with tradition.

Chor Minor

For our last sights of the afternoon we were back in the bus. We stopped first at the Chor Minor, one of Bukhara’s best known and most idiosyncratic sights, tucked away in its back streets east of Lyab-i-Hauz. I have seen it described as resembling an upside-down chair thrust deep into the ground!

Chor Minor means four minarets, but to use that term for the four small turrets at the corners of this one-time madrassah gatehouse is perhaps stretching things. None of them has a gallery and they wouldn’t have been used to call anyone to prayer, being mainly decorative. I loved the way that, at first glance, they seem all the same, only for a closer look to reveal a host of difference in the decoration of each.

Today very little remains of the 1870 madrassah to which this would once have given entry, but if you look either side of the building you can see still some remains. My photos were taken from the south side which would have been the madrassah’s courtyard.

This must in its day have been quite a grand building, with a mosque and pool incorporated, and its seclusion in these sleepy back streets really emphasises how its fortunes have changed. It is unique among all the buildings of Uzbekistan, although it was possibly inspired by the Char Minar Mosque in Hyderabad, where its patron, the merchant Khalif Niyazkul, is thought to have travelled.

Sitorai Makhi Khosa

We drove north a little way out of the old town into a more rural area to visit our final sight. This palace, the Summer Residence of the Emir, was built by the last Emir of Bukhara, Alim Khan, who had close links to Russia, making frequent visits to St Petersburg and living an increasingly cosmopolitan lifestyle. In some ways he epitomised this period of 20th century history in the region, as the modern world collided with the medieval and trying to balance the two worlds he straddled. The architectural style of his palace reflects this – a weird mix between traditional Islamic influences and the tastes he had acquired from his visits to the great cities of Russia. He employed Russian architects to design the facades and external structures, while local artisans decorated the inside. The fine line between art and kitsch was often blurred as these artists competed to present the best of their cultural traditions.

The first thing that struck me after being in Uzbekistan just for a couple of days, growing used to the favoured blues, turquoises and jade colours of the tile-work, was the shock of the deep red majolica on the entrance portal here. Passing through here we came to the courtyard of the main palace building.

Part of the palace houses a museum of applied art. This was very interesting to visit, both for the artefacts it houses and the building itself.

The former include an excellent example of the traditional Uzbek cradle. We were told that these are still in use and assured that they are both practical and cause no discomfort to the baby, but they seem strange to western eyes. The baby is tightly bound and carefully positioned above a hole in the cradle’s base, below which a small terracotta receptacle (differently shaped for a boy or a girl) catches what in the west a nappy would absorb.

The decoration of some of the rooms in palace is striking, to say the least, not least the ganch and mirror-encrusted White Hall. It is lit by a huge chandelier imported from Poland; the door locks and door handles came from England and most of the furniture from Russia. The mirrors are of Venetian glass and the tiles for fireplaces were brought from Germany.

Another room had coloured skylights which lit it up almost like a disco.

Outside we had a short stroll in the grounds. On this hot summer’s day the temperature here was a welcome few degrees lower and there was more breeze than in the city, so it made a pleasant break.

We saw (but I mysteriously failed to photograph!) the harem, and by it a pool where the concubines would swim, naked of course. A nearby platform apparently allowed the emir to watch this spectacle, and to indicate which one he wished to have sent to his chambers by tossing her an apple. The chosen girl would then be washed in donkey’s milk (one of the emir’s eccentricities!) and delivered to his bedroom.

We also went into a small octagonal building, used to accommodate guests, which now houses a small collection of traditional costumes, with beautifully embroidered robes – one completely covered in gold, and another woman’s robe with the sleeves sewn together as a sign that she was married.

Silk Road Spices Café

The Sitorai Makhi Khosa was the last sight on our tour. It was now mid-afternoon and the bus turned back towards the city and our hotel. On this very hot day some siesta time would have made sense, but you know what they say about ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’! We would be leaving Bukhara tomorrow and it seemed to me and Chris that we should make the most of our short time here, so we asked to be dropped off in the centre. My Virtual Tourist friend Ingrid, who had been in Bukhara the previous year, had recommended a café which I was keen to check out – the Silk Road Spices Café, run by the same family who own the spices stall in the Tok-i-Zargaron (Jewellers' Trading Dome) where we’d earlier bought the six-spice tea. We found it to be a real gem, which definitely lived up to the expectations Ingrid had raised!

As soon as we stepped into the cool shady courtyard we knew we were in for a treat. We sat on cushioned benches at one of the long wooden tables and immediately a friendly waitress came to ask if we’d like the fans turned on (‘yes please!!’) and give us the small menu. The choice of drinks wasn’t huge but everything was excellent. Chris had the cardamom coffee while I chose ginger tea. Our waitress explained that the latter is made with several spices, including star anise, black and white pepper, and would be quite hot – sounded good to me, and was! With our drinks we were served a selection of sweetmeats: halva, raisins and nuts.

The family who run the café have been involved in the spice trade for hundreds of years, so I couldn’t think of anywhere more appropriate to sample these drinks while on our Silk Road journey!

We had planned to walk around a bit more and take photos, but after a quick visit to the Tok-i-Tilpak Furushon to buy a pair of the scissors we had seen earlier we walked slowly back to the hotel to relax in the shady courtyard and catch up with some of the others from our group over a cold drink.

Last evening in Bukhara

For dinner this evening we decided to return to the restaurant on the north-western side of the Lyab-i-Hauz, where we had eaten such a good lunch. On the way we stopped off at the Nadir Alim Khan Caravanserai near the Tok-i-Sarrafon, as we’d spotted a notice announcing that it was the centre for an organisation called the Development of Creative Photography. As keen photographers we couldn’t resist going inside to check it out and found it was well worth the visit. We met this local man in the courtyard who greeted us and agreed to pose for photos - even though he doesn't look super happy about it in this one!

Inside there was an interesting exhibition of images by local (I assume) photographers, most of a very high standard. It was wonderful to see Bukhara and the surrounding region through their eyes. Some of the best were of local people, reflecting what we had discovered for ourselves – a genuine sense of interest in others that pervades the culture here and an openness of expression echoing the openness of their welcome. I was also particularly fascinated by some photos of Bukhara in the snow – visiting in July’s red-hot temperatures it was hard, even faced with these images, to conceive of what the street outside would look and feel like under those conditions.

From there we continued our walk to Lyab-i-Hauz and secured a table right by the water’s edge. We chose a couple of salads from a selection brought to our table (so no need to worry about any language difficulties) and the same excellent bread we had enjoyed at lunch time. Chris followed this with a dish of noodles topped with a fried egg (a little odd but he liked it) and I had what was called the ‘special dish’ – layers of meat (mutton), potato, tomatoes and onions cooked and served in the one pot. This was quite tasty and very filling. We washed our meal down with the usual cold local beers and took our time, enjoying the setting and watching all the activity around the pool.

The bonus was a sweet little kitten who stopped by to say hello, climbing up on the next-door table to pose for me!

After our meal I took a few more night shots on the walk back to the hotel where again we settled on the dais in the courtyard to enjoy a night-cap with some of the others. There was a power-cut in this part of town but the family who ran the hotel were clearly used to these and were quick to bring candles so we could continue to enjoy our final drink in Bukhara.

Exploring Samarkand

We started our first full day in Samarkand with breakfast in the Zarina’s basement dining room, surrounded by all the objects collected by the family – old radios, musical instruments etc. Then it was time for our morning sightseeing tour.

After Khiva and Bukhara, Samarkand seemed big and full of bustle, but unlike Tashkent I felt that it retained more of its central Asian character, even in the more modern areas of the city. As an overall destination it didn’t move me in the way that Bukhara had, but some of the individual sights are among the most striking I have seen anywhere. The first impression of the Shah-i-Zinda will remain with me always, and naturally too the stunning Registan Square, though I was more prepared for that by images I’d seen before the trip.

The Shah-i-Zinda

If, as I’ve said elsewhere on these pages, Bukhara was my favourite of the Silk Road cities we visited, this was by far the most impressive and awe-inspiring individual sight. When our travelling companion Els exclaimed, ‘It’s too much for my eyes,’ I knew just what she meant!

Entering through the grand entrance of Ulug Beg’s pishtak, which even on its own would be an impressive sight, we were greeted with a long line of mausoleums, many of them decorated in splendidly rich tile-work, mainly of blues but with touches of other colours too. As we climbed up through the complex more appeared, until I truly didn’t know where to look next, and indeed almost wanted the splendour to stop for a while so that I could take in all that I’d already seen.

This is the holiest site in Samarkand. According to legend, the prophet Elijah led Kussam-ibn-Abbas, first cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, to the Afrosiab hill north east of Samarkand's current location. The legend tells how Kussam came to bring Islam to this Zoroastrian area, and was attacked and beheaded for his trouble. It was believed that despite this he continued to live, and indeed is alive still in an underground palace on this site, which now bears his name; ‘Shah-i-Zinda’ means ‘the Living King’.

Many people believed that the closer you were buried to a holy man, the easier your own route to Heaven would be; thus between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries some 30 tombs were built to form this necropolis centred upon Kussam's mausoleum. The earlier ones clustered around the top of the hill and later they were extended down the southern slope, forming the ‘street’ of mausoleums we see today. Tamerlaine buried many of his female family members here, and Ulug Beg built the grand pishtak as an entrance from the city to this holy place. In Soviet times, and even today, this belief about being buried close to holy men has persisted, so that the hill is now crowned by a cemetery.

For me the greatest impact of the Shah-i-Zinda was the sheer multitude of wonderful structures, many of them glowing so richly with the incredible tile-work, and also the sense of awe and sanctity it exudes. However, some parts and some individual buildings did stand out in particular, so I’ll try to do them justice. The numbers in bold in my text relate to the plan above so you can get some idea of the layout, but feel free to ignore them if you aren’t as obsessed by maps as I am!

After passing through Ulug Beg’s dramatic pishtak (18), the first structure on our left was a relatively recent (19th century) mosque (19), and beyond it a wooden iwan (25). Here an imam was greeting pilgrims and praying with them. In a courtyard on the right (23) a girl was butchering meat, a strangely prosaic sight in this holy place.

Imam ...

The mausoleums are arranged in three groups, separated by gateways known as chortaks, with steps connecting the lower and middle groups. These steps are known as the Staircase of Sinners and it is said that you should count them on your way up and your way back down. If the two numbers coincide you are sinless – mine did, which probably just proves the legend wrong

Halfway up the Staircase of Sinners is the Qasi Zadeh Rumi Mausoleum (17), dating from 1420-25 (17), the first of Shah-i-Zinda’s treasures. Its twin blue domes seem to soak up the colour of the sky and throw it out again even more intensely. This is the largest mausoleum in the complex, and perhaps surprisingly is the tomb not of a great ruler but of Tamerlaine’s wet nurse. A wet nurse was however considered as a second mother, and loved as dearly, which makes it a little less surprising.

Passing through the next chortak we were assailed by the sheer scale and splendour of the complex. A complete street of mausoleums, many of them restored and gleaming with an intense blueness, stretched in front of us. The first four were immediately in front of us; two pairs facing each other across the ‘street’. These were the group that made the most powerful impression on me, because of their proximity to each other – they seemed almost to topple over us, an impression which I tried to capture in my photos.

The first on the left is the Emir Zade Mausoleum, dating from 1386 (10), and on the right the Emir Hussein Mausoleum, 1376 (9).

The next pair are the Shadi Mulk Aka Mausoleum from 1372 (8) and Shirin Bika Aka from 1385 (14). Both of these house tombs of Tamerlaine’s sisters; the first has an inscription which reads ‘This is a tomb in which a precious pearl has been lost’.

Beyond this group and to the right is an unusual 15th century octagonal mausoleum (20). This is anonymous, as are the four unrestored ones on the left. This lack of restoration here came almost as a relief, as it allowed me time to recover my breath (figuratively speaking) and my senses, after the riches that had gone before.

As we continued up through the Shah-i-Zindah complex the ‘street’ widened and it was possible to stand back from the structures to get a different perspective. This photo shows two of the mausoleums in this group, Alim Nasafi (11) and Ulug Sultan Begum (12), both dating from around 1385.

Finally we reached the upper end of the complex, and a group of buildings including the Tuman Aka Mosque (16) and Mausoleum (15) which stand side by side, with the mainly 15th century Kussam ibn Abbas Mosque (21) opposite. The Tuman Aka buildings are dedicated to Tamerlaine’s favourite wife – the calligraphy above the entrance reads: ‘The tomb is a door and everybody enters it’.

I found the Kussam ibn Abbas Mosque one of the most interesting structures here. We entered along a corridor to find ourselves in a series of small rooms, including one with brightly coloured tile-work. The same room has a carved wooden frieze from the earlier 11th century mosque that once occupied this site. You can also peer through a wooden grille to see the four-tiered tomb of Kussam ibn Abbas himself, in the adjacent mausoleum, decorated with ornate majolica and the focus of every pilgrim’s visit.

The door of the mosque is of elm, its original elaborate ivory inlay lost but since restored (I have no idea whether ivory was used in the restoration or something else resembling it). An inscription reveals that the door was made in 1404-05 by the master Yusuf Shirazi.

By the time I reached this point in the complex my eyes were saturated with colour and splendour, and I certainly felt the truth of Els’s words: the Shah-i-Zinda is indeed almost too much for your eyes to take in. I took a break in the shade to sit for a while to contemplate the wonder of this place, and also the reverence with which these tombs were constructed. This was the spot where I decided finally that on balance the Soviet restoration of Uzbekistan’s wonders, which some consider to be over-done, was in fact justified; thanks to them we are able to see this place as its builders intended and marvel at their achievements.

The Ulug Beg Observatory

When all of us could finally tear ourselves away from the Shah-i-Zinda we went on to our next Samarkand sight which, while hardly on the same scale, was nevertheless fascinating.

Ulug Beg, grandson of Tamerlaine, is often referred to as the ‘Astronomer King’, and here we found out why and learned more about this extraordinary ruler. As a young man he developed a love of learning; of mathematics, history, poetry and music – and especially of astronomy. Under his rule Samarkand became known as a cultured city, and here in 1424 Ulug Beg ordered the construction of this huge (for its time) observatory. And it was indeed ahead of its time. I have some very amateurish interest in astronomy myself and so was fascinated to hear about all his achievements.

Here Ulug Beg worked with other astronomers to record the co-ordinates of over 1,000 stars, to predict eclipses, and most impressive of all measured the solar year to within a minute of our modern, technology-assisted calculations.

The main structure of his Observatory has today almost completely disappeared, to be replaced by a Soviet-constructed series of blocks outlining where it would have been. But below ground you can still see the partial remains (11 metres of them) of his great sextant which was used in many of his observations and calculations. Incidentally it’s called a sextant because only 60 degrees of it were used, but it was actually a full 90 degree quadrant, the largest ever constructed at that time.

It was however only by studying the exhibits in the little museum that I was really able to make sense of what the sextant originally looked like and how it operated. There was also a mural showing Ulug Beg teaching astronomy, and I rather enjoyed some of the paintings too – one of Ulug Beg’s birth and another of a design for a ballet called ‘The Legend of Samarkand’.

As I learned later from Wikipedia, he was rather less good at ruling than he was at science and astronomy. He lacked authority and he was overthrown and assassinated after only a short reign. But his scientific achievements live on – there is even a crater on the moon named after him.

The Gur Emir

Our final stop of the morning was at Tamerlaine’s mausoleum, the Gur Emir.

Wherever you go in Uzbekistan it is impossible to avoid hearing the name of Tamerlaine. It seems every nation needs its heroes, and when the Soviets left the country and their heroic statues of Lenin and Marx were pulled down, it was Tamerlaine who took their places on plinths around the country and who came to symbolise for Uzbeks their new-found independence and freedom. Observers from outside might question his credentials as a hero – this is after all a man who, in attempting to conquer the world, left an estimated 17 million people dead in his wake. But in Samarkand in particular he left the legacy of great peace, prosperity and splendour.

Naturally then his mausoleum is of a scale to impress. An unnamed poet is said to have exclaimed on seeing it, ‘Should the sky disappear, the dome will replace it’, and you can sort of see what he meant. Built originally for and by his grandson Mohammed Sultan who died in 1403, it became Tamerlaine’s own burial place also, and that of other descendants too, including Ulug Beg. Other buildings would previously have surrounded it (a madrassah and khanagha) but it now dominates its courtyard. Its octagonal shape is crowned by the immense ribbed dome, 32 metres high and covered in turquoise, yellow and green tiles.

We entered down a short passage which was added to the structure by Ulug Beg. Souvenir books and crafts were on sale here, seeming very out of place in this imposing space. From inside the dome is even more overwhelming, and is adorned with gilded calligraphy, as are the walls below.

Beneath it lie the tombs, or rather marble cenotaphs marking the spots below which are the tombs themselves – of Tamerlaine, Ulug Beg and Mohammed Sultan, and also of Tamerlaine’s advisor Mir Sayid Barakah, and of several of his sons. A long pole crowned with a flourish of horsehair marks the grave of a holy man whose remains were found here when the mausoleum was built.

From here it was a very short drive back to the hotel. As we had two full days in Samarkand, our guided sightseeing was split over the two mornings, leaving us with free afternoons for some independent exploration. For Chris and me that meant, as a first priority, lunch.

Labi Gor Chaikhana

On the main road between the hotel and the Registan we found just what we were looking for. We though this probably the best of the restaurants we tried in Samarkand and was the perfect spot to unwind over a leisurely lunch after our morning’s sightseeing. Be warned though – that was back in 2007 and these days it doesn’t seem to get very good reviews!

The restaurant is quite large and arranged over two floors; the inside ground-floor space looked OK to us but the real delight was the first floor terrace with both traditional and western style seating, and glimpses of the Registan’s madrassah through the leaves of the surrounding trees. The friendly waiter spoke reasonable English and ran through the menu for us, so there was no need for us to worry about any language difficulties.

At Labi Gor

I ate some tasty manty (small mutton and onion stuffed dumplings, similar to Chinese dim sum, served with a dollop of yoghurt) while Chris had a large bowl of noodle soup. We shared a round of non, green tea and a big bottle of fizzy water, and found the bill of under £2 very reasonable given the location.

Sue arrived while we were eating and took this photo of the restaurant with us at our table with a view!

The Registan

The Registan was on the agenda for tomorrow morning’s guided sightseeing tour, but we couldn’t be this close and not go and take a look, so after lunch we walked along to check it out. Our guidebook told us a bit about what we were seeing. The Registan is Samarkand’s (indeed, probably Uzbekistan’s) most famous sight, and with good reason.

The Registan was the heart of ancient Samarkand. The name Registan means ‘sandy place’ in Persian and it was said that the sand was strewn on the ground to soak up the blood from the public executions that were held here until early in the 20th century. This is where Tamerlane stuck his victims’ heads on spikes, and where people gathered to hear royal proclamations. In his time this was the commercial centre of his capital city, where six roads met under a domed bazaar; it must have been similar to the Trading Domes of Bukhara. But his grandson Ulug Beg had grand plans for this space, and nowadays three madrasahs surround the large open space he created: the Ulug Beg Madrasah (1417-1420) which he had built, plus the later Shir Dor (1619-1636) and the Tillya Kari (1646-1660) Madrasahs. These stunning buildings are all constructed on a grand scale, dwarfing the people at their bases.

I’ll save more detailed information for my next entry, as that is when we had our more detailed look at the three madrassahs. For now we simply wandered around near the square and took a few photos from a distance, without paying for the tickets that would have given us a closer look, given that admission to the site would be included in our tour tomorrow.

The Bird of Happiness Gallery

In the streets just east of the Registan we stumbled across a cluster of upmarket shops in a small courtyard. I’d been searching for a gift for my mother, who liked scarves (which you can find in abundance in Uzbekistan) but preferred square ones (which you hardly see at all!) Then in this little gallery I found what I’d been looking for.

The owner welcomed us with tea and sweets and answered (in limited English) our questions about the work for sale. It didn’t sell traditional Uzbek crafts but more modern ones, with a great range of paintings in various media, pottery and hand-painted silk scarves – including some square ones! The prices weren’t cheap - indeed by local standards they were high, and haggling wasn’t an option, but the items were of very good quality and worth what is asked for them, so I was very happy with my purchase.

Next door was another gallery displaying more paintings and very good photos of Uzbek scenery and Samarkand itself, so we enjoyed a browse there too but didn’t buy anything.

In the side street that led to the Zarina B & B were a couple of small local shops, where we had already discovered that we could buy bottled water at a lower price than that sold in the hotel. We stopped off here again this afternoon so that I could buy sweets to take home for work colleagues. This involved a fair amount of miming as I was keen to get a good mix of flavours but at the same time avoid chocolate which wouldn’t have survived in that heat. The shop-keeper was a little bemused at first but eventually we were able to understand each other and the resulting purchase gave me lots of satisfaction. The sweets were pretty tasty too!

Karimbek

Relaxing in the courtyard back at the hotel over a cold drink, we made dinner plans with some of the others from our group. Both Marat (our guide) and our Lonely Planet guidebook recommended the Karimbek restaurant, so we decided to give it a try.

We hailed a taxi on Registan Street and agreed a reasonable fare with the driver for the shortish ride to the restaurant. It was certainly a much better choice than the Marco Polo where we’d eaten the previous evening. There was plenty of choice, and an English-language menu of sorts – anyone for ‘Reach pleasure’, a ‘bird dich’ or 'Fred chicken'? Personally I prefer the meat I eat not to have a name! Note too that 'Payment for broken dishes is in accordance with the price list' - I wonder how many breakages they get if they feel the need to state this on the menu?!

We chose a couple of salads to share to start with, one made with mushrooms and another called ‘charm’ which turned out to be a sort of coleslaw. We also had a hot appetiser of potato skins stuffed with cheese and mushrooms – very tasty. The main courses were less successful (my chicken was a bit dry, Chris’s pork chop rather salty) but the beer was good and the terrace where we sat very pleasant.

The bill came to rather more than the other places where we ate in Samarkand but of course was cheap compared with eating out at home. It came on a tiny scrap of paper with just the figure scrawled on it, so we had no way of knowing if it was right or not! Look at the photo below which Sue took of Georgina – the bill is in her right hand, dwarfed by the bundle of cash needed to pay it!

What really made our evening was meeting the group of local ladies at the next table, who were there with their children for what was evidently a ‘girls’ night out’. They were having a great time, with lots of laughter (gold teeth much in evidence) and I’m sure some sips of vodka between the glasses of Fanta! Eventually one of them (the lady standing on the left of Chris’s photo of me with the group) plucked up the courage to come over to us, after several exchanges of smiles, to practice her little English: ‘Uzbekistan good?’ ‘Samarkand good good?’ – not much, but so much better than my Uzbek! A lovely encounter to end our evening.

Albuquerque

As we drove into Albuquerque after a fascinating morning spent visiting Acoma Pueblo, we had two things on our minds. One was lunch; the other a song by one of our favourite bands, Prefab Sprout:

All my lazy teenage boasts are now high precision ghosts
And they're coming round the track to haunt me.
When she looks at me and laughs I remind her of the facts
I'm the king of rock 'n' roll completely
Up from suede shoes to my baby blues
Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque
Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque …
[The King of Rock and Roll]

While the song has nothing to do with Albuquerque beyond the frequent repetition of the line ‘Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque’, it was naturally stuck in our heads as the only thing we had ever heard about the city prior to visiting!

Although it is the largest city in New Mexico, Albuquerque surprises by not being the state capital – Santa Fe has that honour. The city was established as the Villa de San Felipe de Alburquerque in 1706. Initially a small farming community clustered around the church of San Felipe de Neri, it expanded rapidly when the Camino Real, the main trade route north from Mexico, was developed to run through the area just a few decades later. Later came the railroad, which triggered expansion to the eastern side of the Old Town, in what then was known as New Town but today is Downtown. This was followed by Route 66, which ran through the city on its Central Avenue, and later still further expansion out into the surrounding desert.

Thus Albuquerque has always been a city for travellers, a stopping point on a journey, and so it was for us. Despite its many attractions, we decided to spend only one night here, preferring to have more of our limited time in more scenic parts of the state. Nevertheless we had time to explore the Old Town and see something of the Art Deco style of the Downtown area too.

Perhaps inevitably we were to leave the next morning wishing we had stayed longer, but Santa Fe beckoned, and that did indeed deserve more of our time ...

Meanwhile, here we are on I40 heading into the city with lunch top of our agenda. We found parking near the compact old town and set off to explore.

At first it seemed to us that most of the places around the Plaza were more suited to a large dinner than the sort of light meal we were after. But then we spotted the sign for the Bebe Café (now closed down, I believe) and followed the trail into a pretty courtyard surrounded by interesting little shops, and in one corner a small café with just a few tables outside.

There was one other customer there, waiting for his lunch, and with just the one server we had to wait a short while as all the sandwiches are made freshly to order. But we didn’t mind as it was very pleasant sitting in the courtyard with our cold drinks, and the sandwiches when they came (the day's special of turkey and mango salsa wrap) were very good. The server explained that she had to get to class (clearly a student working to pay her way through college) so would have to lock up the café, but the owner would be along soon – or if we finished our meal before then we could just leave plates etc. on our outside table – very casual and friendly.

After lunch we had a look around the little shops off the courtyard, especially a very good photography gallery opposite the café, and then set out to explore the Old Town area.

The Old Town Plaza

As in any Spanish colonial city, the heart of Albuquerque’s Old Town is its Plaza. The town was founded in 1706 and as it grew settlers built their houses near the church and around a defensible centre, which eventually became the plaza.

Shaded with trees it is a very pleasant place in which to take a rest between sightseeing and shopping (the two main activities in the Old Town). Children play, and both locals and tourists relax on the benches. At the centre is a gazebo which apparently is a popular place for wedding photos to be taken after ceremonies in the church. Also on the plaza are two replicas of cannons which were buried by retreating Confederate troops during a Civil War skirmish on April 8 – 9, 1862. The original cannons are in the Albuquerque Museum.

The Plaza is surrounded by restaurants, shops with high tourist-appeal and under the porticos of some of these Native American traders sell jewellery and other crafts. We didn’t buy anything here (although were to do so a couple of days later in a similar setting in Santa Fe) but it looked a good option if you are shopping – it’s always nice to buy direct rather than pay shop overheads!

San Felipe de Neri

The most striking building in Albuquerque’s Old Town is the church of San Felipe de Neri on the north side of the Plaza, the oldest building in the city. With its slightly incongruous white wooden spires gleaming against the blue sky it is very hard to miss. These spires are a later addition to the late 18th century adobe structure, which itself was built to replace the original (1706) building that collapsed after the particularly rainy summer of 1792. The spires were added under the direction of Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy, whom we were to encounter again later in our trip, in Santa Fe. This French bishop came to the area with very European ideas of what a place of worship should look like – and it wasn’t built of mud!

The bulk of San Felipe de Neri is adobe however, with five foot thick walls. Its cool interior would have been welcoming in the heat of the afternoon even if we hadn’t been interested to explore within. It isn’t large but is quite grand in appearance, with an ornate Baroque altar and an elaborate pressed-tin ceiling (added in 1916).

Capilla de Nostra Senora de Guadelupe

This tiny cross-shaped chapel is a hidden gem of the Old Town, and I’m sure many tourists pass by without realising that is there – we certainly would have done so if it were not for our trusty Moon Handbook, as it isn’t visible from the road and neither is it signposted. It is tucked away in the pretty Patio Escondido and is dedicated to the first saint of Mexico.

It is clear by the votive candles burning here, the flowers and the little prayer messages that it is an active place of devotion. The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe dominates one arm of the cross, to your right as you enter, and opposite it is a colourful stained glass circular window which acts as perpetual calendar, showing the Feasts of the Virgin and the phases of the moon. Opposite the entrance is a small altar.

After our visit I found a story associated with the chapel, which claims that it is haunted by a lady in black. She has apparently often been seen seated on the far right bench of the chapel, weeping copiously. She wears a long black dress and her face is concealed by a dark veil. She is often mistaken for a real person, until she mysteriously vanishes, at which point the observer realises that she cannot after all be real. The lady is not menacing or threatening, but those who have seen her say that there is a deep sense of sadness emulating from her.

The chapel is not old, having been built in 1975 by a Dominican nun, Sister Giotto, as part of the establishment of a school of sacred art in Albuquerque, the Sagrada. Outside the chapel a wall is decorated with a number of small ceramic tiles set in at intervals, portraying various saints.

Meeting a medallist!

Our warm sunny afternoon spent exploring the Old Town certainly called for an ice cream at some point, and we found a few places to choose from to the west of the Plaza, opting for Romero House Ices (also now closed down) because it had plenty of seating outside. It is located in an old house, Romero House, which was built in 1915 and was the last major home built on the plaza. Today it has been converted into a sort of mini mall, with a couple of galleries/shops opening off its central corridor and this small café tucked away at the back. As well as a good selection of ice cream and frozen yoghurt, as promised outside, they also sell cakes and fast food savoury treats such as nachos and grilled sandwiches.

While perusing the different flavours on offer we got talking to the woman selling behind the counter and asked if we could take a few photos. She agreed, and suggested that her father should be in them. It turned out that he was one of two older men sitting at a table in the corner, and as she explained, he is a bit of a local celebrity, having won medals at the Senior Olympics for race-walking. Slightly bashfully he agreed to pose – to be honest, I think he really rather liked the attention even while protesting that he wasn’t worth a photo!

Photography over, we turned back to the display of ices. I had a mango sorbet and pistachio, and Chris chose chocolate and strawberry. We ate them outside in the shade of the flowering bushes on the patio and they were fine – not as good as those we had enjoyed a few days earlier in Silver City, but pretty good just the same.

Staying in Albuquerque

After our ices we decided to go and check into our hotel. The ones in the Old Town were pretty pricey so I had reserved a room in the Hotel Blue, which had been recommended by a Virtual Tourist friend, Gillian. This is located in the downtown business area on a stretch of Route 66, here known as Central Avenue.

The hotel is a modernised 1930s cross between a motel and hotel – the shape, lobby, parking lot etc are more like a hotel in feel, but you access your room from an outside walkway. This may not suit everyone (I saw a few reviews expressing concerns about security) but we had no issues with it, and rather enjoyed the expansive views of the city from our fifth floor room. We were lucky to have been given one in the north east corner as these have views of the mountains beyond the city.

The hotel lobby is very impressive and really reflects the Art Deco style of much of this Downtown district. Staff at reception were friendly and helpful, and there was the nice touch of a plate of cookies on the desk for guests to help themselves!

The décor in the rooms was a lot plainer and the external areas (e.g. the walkways) were not up to the standard of the interiors, but on the whole we felt the facilities and overall appearance exceeded what we would expect for this price and were very happy with our choice.

Exploring Central Avenue

In the early evening we had a walk along part of Central Avenue, near the hotel. Had we not been staying in the Downtown area we might never have explored beyond Albuquerque’s touristy Old Town, and that would have been a mistake. We really liked the ‘vibe’ around here, even though it might be considered a little edgy by some.

We spent some time wandering up and down the road, checking out a few shops (there was a fascinating large one with a huge range of Native American items, from the kitsch to high-end crafts) and taking photos of the wonderful KiMo Theatre. This is a 1920’s cinema whose ornate ‘Pueblo Deco’ style was inspired by Native American iconography in the same way that cinemas of that era elsewhere were built in the style of Moorish mosques or Chinese pagodas. You can tour the interior, which I would have loved to have done, but it’s only open for tours during the day unfortunately. It sounds amazing, according to the cinema’s website, with ‘plaster ceiling beams textured to look like logs and painted with dance and hunt scenes, air vents disguised as Navajo rugs, chandeliers shaped like war drums and Native American funeral canoes, wrought iron birds descending the stairs and rows of garlanded buffalo skulls with eerie, glowing amber eyes.’

This area was once the city’s ‘New Town’, developed in the early years of the last century on either side of Central Avenue (which is in fact a stretch of iconic Route 66), and was the commercial hub. But as the city grew, new shopping plazas opened in outlying districts and the centre declined and became ever scruffier, with boarded up shops and unused office buildings. Then at the turn of this century a movement started to revitalise it, following the principles of New Urbanism. These don’t seem very revolutionary to me, as a European and Londoner, but in the US possibly only New York and few other older cities would recognise what the planners are attempting here. The idea is to create mixed-use neighbourhoods where people can live, work and play without relying on cars. Everything they need – shops, restaurants, bars – should be within a ten minute walk. In a typical American city, where going out means getting in the car and pedestrians are a novelty (we know, we have been those pedestrians!), this is a radical concept – and a marvellous one.

Some redevelopment had already happened in the 1990s, with bars and restaurants springing up on Central Avenue, but the idea that Downtown could be a place to live was a fairly new one when we visited in 2011.

Downtown dining

One reason for choosing the Hotel Blue was the free shuttle service offered to take guests to the Old Town, which we thought would be useful when it came to going out for dinner, but my research had thrown up a few options in the immediate area, so in the end we didn’t take advantage of this. Instead we went to the Flying Star Café, recommended in our Moon Handbook. This is a small local chain with a handful of branches in the city. The one we visited seems to have since closed down but there are still several in the city.

The branch we visited was located in an interesting and rather striking building – which I completely failed to take any photos of! It was originally the Southern Union Gas Company and was designed in 1950 by a regionally famous architect, John Gaw Meem. The gas company stopped using it about 17 years ago and the building was restored for use by the café. It has been granted the status of a National Historic Place, and today is occupied by an IT company, Rural Sourcing (see https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2016/09/07/how-this-tech-company-turned-a-downtown-restaurant.html).

On the evening we visited the café was busy with a wide variety of diners – students making a coffee last for hours while working on laptops (there is free wifi), groups of friends evidently on the first leg of a night out, tourists like ourselves, family groups, business people etc etc. This was clearly a popular spot.

We went to the counter to order (no table service here) and found several tempting dishes on the menu. We decided to keep with the casual vibe and go for sandwiches – Chris’s the Turkey and Swiss on rye, and mine the “MOO-ve Over Meat” veggie burger, which was delicious (I’m not a vegetarian but I do like anything spicy, which this promised to be: a ‘grilled, spicy southwest black bean patty with melted cheddar & Cajun dressing’). Both our sandwiches came with a choice of sides – I opted for the homemade BBQ potato chips while Chris had the French fries.

To go with our meals we ordered a couple of bottles of Santa Fe pale ale – and thus began one of the more amusing incidents of our trip. It is New Mexico state law that anyone drinking alcohol must be over 21 years of age. Neither Chris nor I are under any delusions that we look anything like that age for decades! Consequently we were not surprised to be able to buy beer and other drinks in a number of places during the first few days of our trip. The friendly Buffalo Bar in Silver City happily served us beer and Jack Daniels; the Socorro Springs Brewery had no problem with us enjoying their brews both with and after our meal; and our hotel in Grants served us without a quibble. So imagine our surprise, and initial amusement, when we were asked to show ID here. It was, even back then, a very long while since anyone questioned whether I was over 21! But the server was adamant – no ID, no beer. She did offer to see if her manager would waive the rule, but the manager too was insistent. According to her, state laws meant that anyone serving alcohol to anyone had to ask for and see evidence that they were of legal drinking age. We pointed out that no one else had so far done so, but she said that she could lose her job if the police were to raid the restaurant and find anyone drinking without ID, so Chris popped back to the hotel (thankfully only a few minutes away) to get our passports.

To be fair the manager was only doing her job and we certainly didn’t want her to lose it because of us! And she obviously felt a bit bad because when I went up to the counter to order dessert (Key Lime pie to share and a decaf latte for Chris) she came over to tell the server that it was on the house – how kind!

After this incident we made a point of taking our passports out each evening, but hardly anywhere else apart from Albuquerque did we come across anyone who bothered about this law, if law it was. In the end, only one other place asked for ID, and that was a small family-run restaurant in Alamogordo which had only recently got its license and was presumably being very carefully to do the right thing.

After dinner we again strolled along Central Avenue, and saw for ourselves how the area was becoming more lively when we stopped off for a night-cap.

There were a couple of bars on this stretch of road; one had a live band and therefore a cover charge, but the other, although it had a DJ playing records in one corner, was free to enter. The Blackbird Buvette (now closed down, it appears) was quite a dark and old-fashioned bar and on this warm evening it seemed a shame to sit inside, especially as the music would also have made conversation difficult, so we were pleased to see a table available on the pavement outside. The tables though were carefully roped off and to reach them you had to go into the bar, passing the bouncer who, like the server in the Flying Star, asked us for ID – we were ready for the question this time!

We bought our drinks (a Sodbuster Pale Ale for Chris and a Jack Daniels for me) and grabbed the free table. We then passed a very pleasant half hour or so watching the late evening activity of Downtown – dog-walkers, late-night shoppers, sporty gym-goers, a few tourists, groups of girls clearly on their way home from the gym, young people and older couples on a night out and a handful of business people who had perhaps stayed late at the office that night. It felt much more urban than most US cities do to me, with their sprawling suburbs and often hard-to-identify centres, and we really enjoyed sitting there.

The Hotel Blue in Albuquerque, where we had spent the night, prides itself on its ‘pressure relieving Tempur-Pedic mattresses’ and I was amazed at how comfortable it was, while Chris declared this the best sleep he’d had in ages (despite an incident when I got up to use the bathroom in the night, to discover that a single switch operated both bathroom and main bedroom lights, and thus I had no choice but to flood the room with light, thus waking him!)

The hotel provides a complimentary if simple breakfast which we took advantage of – fruit juice, yoghurt, bread, waffles (make your own) etc. They proudly announced that they serve Starbucks coffee, but it was nevertheless far too weak for my taste, as usual.

The Turquoise Trail

It is possible to drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe in a couple of hours, taking I25, but we had all day and the slower route to the east, another of the state’s scenic byways known as the Turquoise Trail, looked much more appealing. Named for the former turquoise mines in the region, this road (Highway 14) takes you through a series of one-time boom mining towns which are for the most part now very small and sleepy.

So we headed east out of town for a few miles on I40 before turning north, starting our explorations with a couple of sights close to the city.

Sandia Peak

A very popular excursion from Albuquerque is to take the Sandia Peak Tramway to the top of the mountains that fringe the eastern side of the city, for the view and for the outdoor pursuits available there (walking in the summer, skiing in the winter). We hadn’t had time for that while exploring the city yesterday. But there is another way to visit these mountains, by car. So we started our journey to Santa Fe with a detour off Highway 14 along Highway 536, or Crest Road as it is called. This is slow and winding, not a road to be driven in a hurry.

Soon after turning off from Highway 14 we passed the entrance to the Tinkertown Museum, which we planned to visit later, and shortly after this the road started to climb. It was late September and as we climbed we found that the trees, still green at lower altitudes, were starting to take on their autumn hues. There were several stands of aspens that were especially marvellous, and we found ourselves stopping several times to take photos, as around each bend there appeared to be an even more magnificent group.

By the time we reached the peak we were at 10,678 feet above sea level. The large parking lot was nearly empty. We paid the required $3 fee (operated on an honour pay system) and took the path which climbed a short distance higher to a view of the city spread out beneath us.

I expected to see the Tramway terminus and be surrounded by the crowds who choose that route up, but we found that this spot is a couple of miles north of that and consequently much quieter. There were useful information boards along the path pointing out the landmarks that can be seen (including a distant Mount Taylor) and describing the geology and natural history of the area.

We spent some time admiring the view and taking photos, glad that we had warm tops in the car – the thermometer in our car had dropped from 70 Fahrenheit to 58 in the course of the drive up.

We then retraced our route down the Crest Road to the aforementioned museum.

Tinkertown

As soon as I read about Tinkertown I knew that it was a ‘must see’. We both love these idiosyncratic places that seem to define a US road trip for us – and this is one of the best we have come across. If you are anywhere in the area I urge you to go – you’ll have great fun and even maybe find yourself a little moved by the dedication of the one man who created it.

So many of these quirky folk-art museums are the result of one person’s obsession. In this case that person was Ross Ward. It took him over 40 years to create the huge number of models and scenarios that make up Tinkertown, and it’s easy to believe that it took that long once you start to explore. As he said, ‘I did all this while you were watching TV’. A sign inside explains:

‘Tinkertown was begun as a hobby in 1962. The little General Store came first (it was all I intended to build at the time!) 90% of this display was built by myself. The buildings are scraps form my sign business and the people are wood-carved or made of clay. Many of the furnishings are antique toys and miniatures. I did it all “a dollar at a time” without a grant or a bank loan! You can do the same no matter what your project!’

The fun started as soon as we pulled up in the car. There are old signs galore, wagon wheels, saddles, other Wild West paraphernalia dotted around the site, while the wall that surrounds the museum is made up of over 50,000 glass bottles – recycling gone crazy! Once we’d finished exploring and taking photos outside (at no charge), we paid just $3 each to enter the rambling museum, where we were transported to another world!

The first section, which was probably my favourite, consists of a row of dioramas depicting different buildings on a sort of Wild West theme. There’s the General Store already mentioned, a hotel, a Native American Trader, a pharmacy with a doctor’s surgery above and many more. Some are animated, all are fascinating and repay careful scrutiny – there are just so many amusing details. Here a man with a cleaver chases chickens in a circle, the doctor ogles a young female patient while his nurse glares at him, men fight in the street, couples ride by in wagons and children play.

In other sections we saw Ward’s various eclectic collections from over the years, including wedding cake couples, antique tools, bullet pencils, dolls and more. Later models are on a grander scale, especially the circus, complete with big top, cages of animals, trapeze act – the list goes on.

Many of the models are animated. When we paid for our entry we were given a quarter back to put into the first animation, a hillbilly band ‘Rusty Wyer and the Turquoise Trail Riders’. We were glad however that we also had a few quarters with us to use on the other models we came to later in our tour – the Boot Hill Cemetery in particular was a must!

Oh, and hidden among the collections is a small model of Mark Twain, and this quote from him, which I think could be a great motto for any of us here on TravellersPoint:

‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely ... Broad, wholesome, charitable views ... cannot be acquired by vegetating in one’s little corner of Earth.’

Outside we found a rather incongruous addition to the collection in the shape of the Theodora, a 35 foot wooden boat that a friend once sailed around the world before retiring to the Caribbean and donating his boat to Tinkertown.

Golden

Our first stop on the Turquoise Trail proper was in the ghost town of Golden. This was the site of the very first gold rush west of the Mississippi back in 1825, even before the more famous California and Colorado gold rushes. So rich did the seam of gold appear that the town, originally named El Real de San Francisco, changed its name, and it soon grew to support several saloons, businesses, a school, and even a stock exchange. But by 1884 the gold was already beginning to run out and with no gold to keep them here people began to leave. The town survived for a while, acting as a small hub for local ranchers (the Golden General Merchandise Store opened in 1918 and is still operating today). But decline seemed to be inevitable, and by 1928 its population was so small that Golden was officially declared a ghost town.

For years afterwards its many abandoned buildings remained, falling into ruins among the very few still occupied, and that’s pretty much how we found it. There was a scattering of houses, and several piles of old stone that on close inspection revealed themselves to be crumbling walls. Most were too far gone even to be very photogenic, unlike some other ghost towns.

But one building was definitely worth stopping for a photo or two, the pretty little Catholic Church of San Francisco, dating back to 1830. Unfortunately however, today the gate to the churchyard was firmly locked so we could only take pictures from some distance. Later the same day we were to meet the local priest in Los Cerrillos who explained that the church was undergoing restoration so was locked for safety reasons. But it still made an attractive image as you can see.

Madrid

Our next major stop was in this considerably livelier ‘ghost town’. My TP friend Rosalie told me recently that a ghost town doesn’t have to necessarily be deserted, at least according to some definitions, which allow there to be some people living there as long it has declined to a ‘ghost’ of its former self. And that is certainly true of Madrid.

Pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, MAD-rid, rather than as the city in Spain, Mad-RID, this was once a coal-mining town, founded in 1869. In its heyday the town supplied coal for the Santa Fe Railroad, local customers and even the US Government. It was one of the first ‘company towns’ in the US; in 1919, the Superintendent of Mines, Oscar Huber, introduced a number of modern conveniences and facilities for the miners, including paved streets, a hospital, a company store, schools, and unlimited free electricity from the company power plant. During Prohibition, the company even furnished a place where people could distil illegal liquor!

But when coal use declined the town fell silent and became truly a ghost town. In the early 1970's, artists and craftspeople began to discover it, converting the old company stores and houses into shops and galleries.

It was around lunch time by the time we arrived here, so we went to check out the first likely-looking place we spotted for a bite to eat, the Hollar. This had a good range of lighter meals on the menu, and seemed popular, so we decided to give it a try. There were a number of tables in the shady garden at the front, but several of these were occupied by a rather noisy group so we opted to sit inside. We both chose salads. Chris’s Chef’s salad was a generous plateful of leaves etc. with turkey, ham and cheese. My ‘warm goat cheese salad with roasted bell peppers’ was also a good size and I liked the addition of a few berries, although the cheese was rather bland and lacked the sharpness I usually look for in a goat’s cheese. A pleasant lunch-stop, nevertheless.

Once we’d eaten we set off to explore the town. It seemed that almost every building housed a gallery or craft shop, and many of them had pretty high-quality items – paintings, jewellery, native pottery, sculpture and much more. Many of the shops are run by the artist themselves and it was fun and interesting to chat to them about their work even though we weren’t necessarily interested in buying – while they would obviously like to make a sale, they seemed to enjoy the conversations too.

Although Madrid was primarily a coal mining town, this is after all the Turquoise Trail here and we saw lots of jewellery made from the local Los Cerrilos turquoise which is a distinctive greenish colour. The big pieces were expensive, but I bought a pretty bracelet for my sister for $20 in a shop near the mining museum.

Madrid’s artiness extends outside the buildings too. Whether it is a row of colourful mail-boxes, a brightly painted wall, a collection of old signs in a coffee shop or simply a gallery’s porch adorned with samples of the owner’s work, we were never far from an eye-catching image.

Ah yes, those old signs! I am always on the search for a good cup of coffee, and especially when in the US, where so many establishments serve what I describe as ‘brown water’ (when I’m being polite!) So when we spotted a promising-looking coffee shop, the Java Junction, in the midst of Madrid’s galleries I was keen to give it a try – and was not disappointed.

As soon as we entered, we were struck by the eclectic décor, and impressed by the range of espresso-based treats on offer. As I was craving a caffeine fix, I went for the simple iced coffee, which was strong and black, just as I like it. Furthermore, the Java Junction makes its own coffee ice cubes, so as they melt into your drink they don’t dilute the coffee flavour as normal water cubes do. Chris chose a mocha, and we took our drinks out into the garden area to one side of the building. There was plenty of seating and the space was perfect for relaxing, with a view of all the passers-by on the road outside but sufficiently set back from it. We also enjoyed examining, and photographing, the fence which was decorated with all manner of bits and pieces – old signs, kitchen implements, tools, watering cans, artificial flowers and loads more.

Los Cerrillos

Just north of Madrid we stopped again in Los Cerrillos, a short distance off Highway 14. This is the place that gave the Turquoise Trail its name, but in the past its mines have yielded treasures of many kinds. Los Cerrillos means Little Hills, and in the hills surrounding this once prosperous town were found not just turquoise, in a distinctive green-tinged variety, but also gold, silver, lead and zinc. At the peak of all this activity, in the mid 1880s, there were roughly 3,000 prospectors working these hills and at the heart of them Los Cerrillos provided for all their needs, with 21 saloons, five brothels, four hotels, and several newspapers. The town became so well known that it was seriously considered as a possible capitol for New Mexico – hard to believe when you look around today.

Most of the mines closed before the end of the 19th century, although American Turquoise Company, a subsidiary of Tiffany’s, continued to mine here until the First World War. Today, just a few small private mines remain, but even so the majority of turquoise mined in New Mexico still comes from these beautiful hills.

If Madrid with all its bustle had seemed something of a half-hearted attempt at a ghost-town, Los Cerrillos appeared to us to be much closer to the real deal. Sure, people live here, but the sleepy dirt streets and decidedly run-down bar gave it something of a forgotten look, although perhaps surprisingly this was more peaceful and friendly than sad. Maybe there was just enough life left here after all to make us feel welcomed? Or maybe the presence of an attractive 1920s church made the place seem more cared for than it at first appears?

Saint Joseph’s Church

This church is not as old as the other buildings that stand near it, and also appears much more loved and better cared-for. It was built between 1921-22, replacing an earlier 19th century structure that stood next door to this spot (where the parking lot now is). It is still very active, with Mass said every Sunday.

I wanted to go inside but when we tried the door, we found it locked, as was the case in other small towns we visited. So we resigned ourselves to just taking a few photos of the exterior and to exploring the recently added attractive shrine on the right-hand side of the church. But as we entered this the local priest approached from the far end of the path and greeted us. To our surprise he had a very Scottish accent (think Billy Connolly!) We got talking and he offered to show us the interior, where he was also happy for me to take a few photos while he told us his story.

Despite the strong accent we learned that he had lived in New Mexico for over twenty years, originally emigrating there as to teach in Albuquerque. Some years ago he had a calling to the priesthood, was trained and was ordained a few years back. His first parish had been in quite a challenging area of the city and his health had suffered through stress, so he had recently been transferred here to Los Cerrillos. When I commented on how much more relaxing it must be, in such a pretty backwater, he agreed, but added that the new strain on him was the travelling involved, as he is also responsible for the parishes of Golden, some miles to the south, and Gallisteo to the east.

We really enjoyed chatting to him, and he was also very helpful in suggesting an alternative route into Santa Fe. It was friendly encounters like this that helped to make our trip to New Mexico such a pleasure.

But before following his suggested route there was a bit more for us to see here. If you should get the feeling when in Los Cerrillos that you are in a movie set, well ... you are! This has been the location for some 13 movies, including Young Guns, Young Guns II, Shoot Out (with Gregory Peck) and John Wayne’s 1972 movie, The Cowboys. And one result of all this activity can be found at the bar just down the street from the church, Mary's Bar. This bar was until fairly recently simply called Cerrillos Bar, but its name was changed to Mary’s Bar for the shooting of the film Vampires in 1998 and never changed back – Los Cerrillos is that sort of place, somehow.

From the outside I assumed the building was no longer in use, it was that dilapidated. But as I stood there taking photos a couple arrived, walked up to the door and went in. So naturally I followed.

At first sight the interior looked almost as unused as the front had done, with a few almost empty shelves and a ‘just about to move out’ appearance. But then I realised that there was a counter on the right with a few people sat up at it and a lady serving drinks. I would have liked to have stayed for a cold one, but we had spent rather a long time chatting to the priest at the church and decided that we should perhaps head off for Santa Fe at this point. I read afterwards though that Mary, who has run the bar since the 1970s, usually has a tale or two to tell about serving drinks to the cast of the Young Guns films, so maybe we should have lingered.

Next door to the bar we spotted the intriguingly named What Not Shop. What a great name for a shop! I just had to look inside. And I soon discovered that it’s an appropriate name too – this place is full of what-nots. And thingamajigs. And thingamabobs. And no doubt a lot more besides, although finding it among the chaos could be a challenge!

What Not Shop

In a series of rambling rooms there are no doubt some gems too – I spotted some pretty native jewellery and pottery, for instance. There was also an odd assortment of old china and glassware, rusty old tools, indeterminate kitchen gadgets from long ago, a saddle, an old weaving loom, a pile of old National Geographic magazines, a few tatty books, old jars and cans of assorted sizes and descriptions, bison skulls and other hunting trophies – most of the covered in a thin layer of dust. The owner didn’t seem too keen on me taking photos but I confess I grabbed a few as you can see.

On one wall was an especially bizarre and slightly disturbing item – a glass case featuring the top half of a female dummy, surrounded by underwear and other items of clothing, and with a number of large rusty nails thrust through her body. When we asked the lady in the shop to tell us about it, she shook her head, simply saying that it was ‘a long story’, and again refusing permission for photos. We came to the conclusion that it must be some sort of left-over (maybe a prop) from the filming of John Carpenter’s Vampires movie. Chris did grab a shot, which I have included here, and if anyone can offer a better indication of its origins I’d be grateful.

Arriving in Santa Fe

When we were planning our road trip in New Mexico we knew that we wanted to spend several days in Santa Fe, and we knew that we wanted to stay near the centre, within walking distance of the Plaza. We also didn’t want to spend a fortune – a set of apparently incompatible wishes, until I came across the Chapelle Street Casitas. This is a cluster of self-catering properties, ranging from small and cosy to large family-sized options, all scattered over a few blocks in an area to the north west of the Plaza. Nowadays it seems that they are only available for long-term rental, so we were fortunate that back then they had just a three-night minimum which, as we wanted to spend four nights here, was just fine.

As there were just two of us we chose one of their smaller properties, 211 Chapelle C, described as ‘a small, rustic one bedroom’ which was a fair enough description. It was one of a row of four in, unsurprisingly, Chapelle Street itself, just around the corner from the B&B that formed the hub of the business (for an extra payment we could have had breakfast here but we preferred to go out and about each morning, with the flexibility to choose our own time and place).

We checked in at the B&B, where the owner was full of useful info about the town. She gave us a street map, and a sketch map showing the location of our unit and also a nearby parking spot that was ours to use for the duration of our stay – a valuable bonus in old town Santa Fe, where parking is notoriously difficult to find.

The row of Chapelle Street units was built over 100 years ago to house Army officers at the local fort. The description of Unit C went on: ‘small one bedroom, living room with futon sofa bed, bedroom with queen bed, full kitchen, full bath’ – and that about summed it up! We entered directly into the living room, which lead in turn to the bedroom, with bathroom off it, and beyond that the kitchen. The latter was fully equipped for self-catering but we didn’t use it as such, apart from employing the large fridge to keep some cans of beer cool!

Sitting room

On the whole we were very satisfied with our little home in Santa Fe. The location was great, the main rooms (bedroom and living room) were cheerfully painted with nice old dark wood floors, and we had everything we needed for our stay. The bedroom was maybe a little small and dark, but the website was honest about that and we were only in it at night so that wasn’t a problem. The bathroom was on the simple side and few toiletries were provided, but there were plenty of towels, the shower worked well and there was always hot water.

Blue Corn Café

On our first evening in Santa Fe we went to the Blue Corn Café as it got a good write-up in our Moon Handbook and had also been recommended by the owner of the Casitas when we checked in that afternoon. The Moon book did comment on its slightly chain-like appearance (in fact there is just one other branch, on the south side of town) but in my view that was a little unfair. OK, it is above a small shopping mall, but we were to discover that this is true of quite a few restaurants in the town, and although the space was large it had been well laid-out, with wooden tables and chairs comfortably spaced and some very good local photos displayed on the walls. We enjoyed our meal here, and the friendly service, and found it good value for money in what can be a pricey town.

Chris had the Chimichanga with chicken and pronounced it the best meal of the trip so far! I was nearly as pleased with my red chilli pork Tamales, and the accompanying beans and Spanish rice, in generous portions, made it a substantial meal – especially as we hadn’t been able to resist starting with a shared portion of the trade-mark blue and white corn chips with guacamole! I had the house margarita and Chris a pint of one of their own micro-brews, the Atomic Blonde Lager. We were very satisfied with our first meal in the town that was to be our base for the next few days.

El Paseo Bar & Grill

Looking for a night-cap we came across this unassuming little bar just south of the Plaza, which advertised live music some nights (now closed down, according to Yelp, before anyone gets the idea to check it out). It was Tuesday, and therefore ‘open mic’ night. We thought this might be interesting; however in the time we were there (well over an hour) only one band played, that of the manager, and the light jazz style was not really to our taste. A few other people had turned up, including a guy with a guitar, but they seemed reluctant to take the stage! In the end we gave up waiting for music, but not before I’d enjoyed a decent margarita and Chris a couple of bottles of beer.

We slept well in our cosy casita in Santa Fe and woke eager to explore a town we had read so much about. For Chris today was also an opportunity to take a break from driving, as we left the car parked in our allocated spot and walked everywhere for the day – our choice of a central location was really paying off.

We could (at an extra cost, naturally) have arranged to have breakfast at the B&B owned by the same people as our casita, but chose not to, and we also didn’t want to self-cater, despite having a very serviceable kitchen. Instead we preferred to sample a variety of breakfast places in the vicinity of our little home. On this first morning we tried one that came highly recommended in our Moon Handbook, Café Pasqual’s.

It was very busy and we were fortunate to be able to get a good table straightaway – we observed that others who weren’t so lucky were quite happy to wait some time, such is the reputation of the place. It seemed to be popular not only with tourists but also locals – girl-friends meeting for breakfast, and a couple of local businessmen. I loved the colourful décor, with bright murals and Mexican tiles, and our table on a raised area at one end of the small room gave us a great view of this and of all the activity.

We found the breakfast menu to be quite extensive, as befits somewhere famous for its breakfasts. I decided to try something different, the ‘Three House-made Blintzes, Golden from the Skillet, Topped with Strawberry Jam and Sour Cream’. These were good but very filling, with a bit too much cream for that time of day (regular cream, which I left to one side, as well as the sour cream promised by the menu). Chris chose what he expected to be a healthy option, the nutty granola, with yoghurt and berries, but the portion was so huge that it probably wasn’t that healthy after all! He also had a cappuccino and I had a double espresso, really appreciating the availability of strong coffee to kick-start my day.

All this didn’t come cheap however. The cappuccino alone was $5 which was more than we were used to paying in pricey London, and our total bill (with two grapefruit juices as well) was $50 – more than we had paid for the previous night’s dinner! So although we liked the breakfast, and loved the atmosphere, we went elsewhere on the subsequent mornings.

Santa Fe

Santa Fe has sometimes been nicknamed ‘Fanta Se’, and it’s not hard to see why. The city lives for its art. And I am not referring only to the thousands of people here who are engaged in the arts in some way or another – running a gallery, creating paintings or photos or sculptures, writing or performing etc. No – the city itself seems to have a sense of itself as a work of art. Local regulations control very strictly control the appearance of all buildings in the downtown area, around the Plaza – if it isn’t adobe, it had better at least pretend to be!

But if that sounds critical, it isn’t really intended to be. We had a lovely few days here, enjoying the history, architecture, galleries and surrounding countryside.

Today our focus was on the historic centre. When we arrived at our accommodation in Santa Fe the owner of the Chapelle Street Casitas had said ‘And yes, there is a law that everything has to be brown!’ The downtown area here preserves a number of old adobe buildings from Spanish colonial times, but at first glance you might be fooled into thinking that all the buildings were old, and all of them adobe. And that’s just what the city planners want you to think. For decades now, all new building in this part of the city has had to conform to the same overall style, although many of the apparently ‘adobe’ buildings that you will see are in fact plaster and stucco, built in the early 20th Century to satisfy this collective vision of what the city ought to look like to appeal to tourists. A city ordinance exists to enforce the on-going homogenisation of the downtown district, requiring that all new buildings, additions and restorations conform to one of two traditional styles:
~ ‘Pueblo Revival’ – a mix of styles based on Native American mud buildings and Spanish mud-brick churches
~ ‘Territorial’ – a style based on early Anglo modifications of adobe buildings, with additions like wood trim around windows and door openings and decorative friezes on the parapets

Opinion is divided as to the success of this approach to town planning, and I couldn’t make up my own mind either. When we first arrived I was rather struck by the appearance of the streets around the Plaza, with their uniform colour and (mostly) low heights giving them a very characteristic look. But after a while the uniformity can start to look more dull than distinctive. The secret to appreciating these buildings, I realised as we explored, is to stop seeing them as a homogenous whole and look for the details that make certain among them stand out.

San Francisco Cathedral

We started our explorations in the area to the east of the Plaza, at Santa Fe’s cathedral. In the homogenous adobe world of Santa Fe’s downtown area, the Cathedral of San Francisco seemed somewhat incongruous. How did such a European-looking place of worship come to be here? Well, it was, unsurprisingly, due to one particular European, a French priest – Jean Baptiste Lamy. Apparently when he first arrived here in 1851 he was shocked at some of the religious practices, including the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and also horrified by the church buildings, finding it impossible to believe that anyone could reach heaven while praying on a dirt floor inside a building made of mud! So he commissioned this new cathedral for Santa Fe, and all of the old church was demolished, apart from one small side chapel. But it seems that he ran out of money, and the two spires that should have topped the towers either side of the front porch were never added – hence their rather odd stumpy appearance.

Inside it is light and rather lovely, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether the ancient adobe would have held more atmosphere and sense of the spiritual? I got some hint of that in the one remaining adobe chapel, on the left of the altar. This houses a small statue, La Conquistadora, brought to Santa Fe from Mexico in 1625. She was carried away by the retreating Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt, but reinstated in 1693, and has been honoured ever since for inspiring the Spanish to stick with their colonising project, and for what was regarded (possibly mistakenly?) her peaceful acceptance by the natives . Whether such colonial ‘smirking’ is appropriate in a church I was not so sure, but the little statue is a marvel indeed.

Elsewhere in the cathedral though, the native influence was more apparent, for instance in the clothing of some of the saints portrayed and in the dreamcatcher-like bell that hangs above the lectern. This and many other elements of the decoration and ornamentation are quite modern, such as the windows of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel to the right of the altar, the altar screen and the great bronze doors. All of these were added in 1986 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral. I very much liked these modern touches, which added to the sensation of lightness and airiness.

In front of the cathedral are a couple of interesting statues. One is naturally of the patron saint, St Francis. The other is more unusual and depicts Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint. She was a 17th century Mohawk-Algonquian woman, who converted to Christianity at an early age.

There is also a statue of Bishop Lamy, but I was perhaps feeling a little irritated by this rather sanctimonious French cleric at this point, as I omitted to photograph him!

Cathedral Park

Next we investigated the small park next to the cathedral. This was established in 1998 to mark the 400th anniversary of the first European, i.e. Spanish, colonisation of New Mexico. There are some lovely trees there and it seemed a quiet, restful spot away from the bustle of the streets. In the centre we came across a monument commemorating the anniversary. The inscription on it reads:

‘The year 1998 marked the 400th anniversary of the arrival in New Mexico of about 560 valiant men, women and children to establish one of the earliest permanent European settlements in the United States. Their leader and first governor, Don Juan de Oñate, led this intrepid band north over hundreds of desolate, dangerous miles to the green valleys of northern New Mexico. It was there the colonists established themselves by introducing European crops and the first horses, sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys and poultry – thereby establishing European culture and technology in the United States, where they had not previously existed.

With the settlers came the Franciscan priests and brothers who ministered to the colonists and to the native inhabitants of the region. It was this unswerving devotion to their faith and to their families that consoled and inspired those settlers and their descendants to endure and prevail over 400 years of isolation, abandonment, hardship and cultural challenges. It is to those heroic precursors that our community joins in raising this monument to our forefathers’ continuing contributions to the history, culture and values of today’s America. May they serve as an inspiration to all who pass this way.’

The monument includes sculptures of different types of settler – Franciscan monk, a colonial settler family (man, woman and two children), and a Spanish soldier. They surround a column which is topped by a statue of Mary La Conquistadora. At its base are many of the fruits, vegetables, tools, music instruments etc. brought to New Mexico by these colonialists, and it is supported by a cow, a pig, a sheep and a donkey.

The Loretto Chapel

Our next visit was to the much smaller Loretto Chapel. Not content with rebuilding the Cathedral in an architectural style which, he believed, was more fitting for worship, Bishop Lamy also commissioned the small Loretto Chapel a little to the south of it – the first Gothic structure to be built west of the Mississippi. Outside the chapel we saw a tree hung with rosaries, which is interesting in the light of the fact that the chapel was desanctified in 1971 and sold to a private family.

This family have preserved it well, hiring it out for weddings and opening it to the public each day. There is an admission charge of $3 (September 2011 prices) and I though it was well worth paying this small fee for a glimpse inside. The chapel is richly decorated with stained glass windows from France and Stations of the Cross from Italy, but what makes it special is the so-called miraculous spiral staircase that leads to the choir loft. Fashioned beautifully from an apparently extinct species of wood, it twists elegantly upwards with no central pole to support it, resting solely on its base and against the loft, and making over two complete 360-degree turns as it climbs. It is 20 feet high and was constructed without glue or nails, using only square wooden pegs to hold the parts together.

One story starts with the suggestion that the Sisters of Loretto had been given the funds by Lamy to build their chapel, but that the money ran out before they could build a stair to reach their choir loft. Another version says that the small size of the chapel meant that no carpenter could identify a way to fit a staircase into the space. Both versions go on to tell how the Sisters made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a mysterious carpenter appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. He worked at the staircase for six months, never saying a word, and then left, without taking any payment. After searching for the man (an ad even ran in the local newspaper) and finding no trace of him, some concluded that he was St. Joseph himself, having come in answer to the sisters' prayers. Certainly the carpenter was never heard from again, although some historians claim to have tracked him down to Las Cruces, where he met his end in a bar fight. Whatever its origins, the staircase is beautiful, and even the later addition of balustrades and handrails (for safety reasons) cannot detract from the simple grace of its upwards sweep.

San Miguel Mission

Next we walked a little south of the centre to this adobe mission chapel, which claims to be the oldest church in the United States, having been built between around 1610 to 1626. Whether that claim is true or not, this old building certainly has plenty of character and again I thought it well worth the $1 we were charged for admission. Slightly oddly, you enter through the gift shop, so that it feels rather like a shop with a church tacked on to the back. But once inside you find a little gem. The beautiful wooden altar screen or reredos dates from 1798 and is the oldest of its type in the state. The statue in its centre is of the chapel’s patron saint, St Michael the Archangel and was brought here from Mexico in 1709.

In front of the altar, glass panes in the floor allowed us to peer down at the original foundations of the church and of the Native American structure formerly on this site. At the other end of the little chapel, near the door, is a large bell. This once hung in the bell tower and has an inscription dedicated to San Jose and dating it to 1356.

There are several picturesque old houses in the area immediately around the chapel, one of which the oldest house in the city and also claims to be the oldest in the US, supposedly built around 1646 (a claim I was unsure whether or not to believe). Near this is another house with stunning turquoise wooden window frames and shutters.

By now it was lunch time so we wandered back towards the centre in search of refreshment.

The Shed

A friend who lived in the Santa Fe area for a while had recommended this restaurant, so although we usually choose somewhere more casual for lunch we decided to give it a try for our first lunch in the city – what a great decision! We loved it here – food, setting and ambience.

The restaurant is located in an old hacienda (dating back to 1692) and spread over nine rooms, as well as a small courtyard at the front. The décor is bright and cheerful, with lots of interesting paintings and other traditional crafts.

They don’t appear to take reservations for lunch and when we arrived we were told there would be a 15 minute wait. We were given a pager and took a seat in the courtyard to wait but in fact were called to a table inside after about 10 minutes (we would have waited longer if we’d wanted an outside one I think). As we were looking for something light, we were pleased to find plenty of choices. I had the gazpacho which was refreshing and tasty, and Chris chose a ‘small’ salad (that is, smaller than the ‘big’ version of the same!) of chicken, blue cheese, walnuts and salad leaves.

While we were eating our lunch a lady stopped by our table to look more closely at the painting behind it and we got talking. She explained that she was from Guatemala (where we had been just last year) and recognised the style of the painting as Guatemalan, so was trying to make out the artist’s signature – sadly neither she nor we could do so.

On leaving we asked about reservations for dinner the next day but could only get a table at 8.30 pm (or 5.30pm, but that was rather too early for us). Although we normally eat a bit earlier that that we accepted, as we were very keen to return and sample more from their extensive menu. And we were very pleased that we had – but that’s a story for a future entry!

The Plaza

We had already passed through the Plaza earlier in the day, on our way to the cathedral, but after lunch we returned for a better look around. The Plaza originally marked the end of El Camino Real (the Spanish Royal Road from Mexico City) and the Santa Fe Trail, an important trade route. In those days it would have been surrounded by a large defensive wall that enclosed residences, barracks, a chapel, a prison and the Governor's Palace. Of these just the Governor’s Palace, on the north side, remains, and where there were once barracks and defences today you find restaurants and shops.

In the centre of the Plaza is the Indian War Memorial, which was dedicated in 1867 to those who died in ‘battles with…Indians in the territory of New Mexico’. As this inscription suggests, the monument was erected during times of conflict between colonists and natives, and the space between ‘with’ and ‘Indians’ originally carried the word ‘savage’. This has been removed in these more enlightened times, although the monument itself still seems something of an anachronism.

The Plaza is nicely laid out with lawns, trees and plenty of benches where you can relax and watch the world go by – an activity which locals seem to enjoy here as much as do visitors.

Native jewellery seller

Palace of the Governors

The Palace of the Governors, lies on the north side of the Plaza – a single-storey adobe building running the full length of the block. It was built in 1610 as Santa Fe’s original capitol building, and claims to be the oldest U.S. public building still in continuous use. It was designated a Registered National Historic Landmark in 1960 and an American Treasure in 1999.

Inside is a museum which tells the story of Santa Fe and the surrounding area. Collections cover the Spanish colonial (1540-1821), Mexican (1821-1846), U.S. Territorial (1846-1912) and statehood (1912-present) periods of history. We only had limited time to look round (doing our usual trick of trying to pack too much into one day, while also wanting to chill and enjoy our surroundings!) But even with limited time it was worth making the effort to go in – for me, not so much for the collections, good though they are, but for the chance to see inside this old building. I also liked seeing the period rooms which offer a glimpse of how life would have been in the past for residents of Santa Fe.

Along the portico of the Palace of the Governors, and on the north side of the Plaza opposite, Native Americans take up their places each day to sell jewellery and other traditional crafts. This is an eighty year old tradition, nowadays operated through the ‘Native American Artisans Program of the Palace of the Governors’. There are around 1,000 vendors who are licensed to sell here after going through a strict application process to assess the quality of their work. The goods displayed and sold by participants in the scheme must be made by the seller or by their household members. Every morning the 63 spots available, each 12 bricks wide, are allocated by lottery, so you can never be sure who you will find here or what they will be selling. But it’s a great opportunity to buy directly from the creator and as they all seem happy to talk about their work you will also find out a bit about the piece you are buying.

I looked at a number of items. One man was selling silver necklaces with representations of the different sacred animals, such as Bear and Wolf, and explained the meaning of each to me. But in the end I opted for turquoise, choosing a pretty silver necklace threaded with small stones which the seller told me came from Arizona, where she and her sister lived and made the jewellery. Sadly that necklace was one of the items taken when we were burgled a couple of years ago, so I'm glad I at least have this photo of the seller by which to remember my purchase.

Andrew Smith Gallery

We visited quite a few galleries during our stay in Santa Fe (most of them on our final day here), although only a fraction of the total number – I read that ‘Art galleries’ take up five pages in the local Yellow Pages directory, and ‘Artists’ have their own separate heading, with subheadings for painters, sculptors, etc. Perhaps our favourite gallery of all was the one we visited first, the Andrew Smith Gallery, which specialises in ‘Masterpieces of Photography’. It was a real thrill to see some of their wonderful images by such famous photographers as Ansel Adams, Annie Liebowitz, Edward Weston, Alfred Steiglitz, Cartier-Bresson and more, as well as to discover some that we didn’t know.

Although this is a commercial gallery and all the photos are for sale, we didn’t feel pressurised into buying and I got the impression that they are as happy to welcome enthusiastic sightseers as serious collectors.

Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

We had passed what is probably the best known of Santa Fe’s many galleries, large and small, earlier in the day, as it was just round the corner from our little casita in Chapelle Street. We didn’t know a lot about O’Keeffe before coming to Santa Fe, but we were keen to find out more. We had been warned by our Moon Handbook that the museum had perhaps fewer of her works than might have been expected in one dedicated entirely to this single artist – unfortunately by the time it opened in the late 1990s many of her pieces were already in collections elsewhere. But as the guidebook explained, this had been partly rectified in 2005 when the museum received the collection of the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, so lovers of her work, or the curious such as ourselves, should at least find it worth a visit.

The gallery is modern and light, with six of its rooms now given over to the O’Keeffe collection. Of these I liked best the large flower pictures, such as white jimson weed, for which she is perhaps best known, and the landscapes painted in the immediate vicinity of Santa Fe, evocative of her love for this red sandstone country. I also liked the way the exhibition was curated, with some fascinating quotes from O’Keeffe painted on the walls alongside the paintings.

No photography was allowed inside, but I note from the website that this policy has now been changed and photos are actively encouraged – a sign, no doubt, of the increasing importance of social media in spreading the word about places to visit:
‘The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum allows non-flash photography in most areas. Feel free to photograph friends and family and your favorite works of art. Please note that photography is allowed only for personal, noncommercial use, with the following restrictions: no tripods, no flash photography, no selfie sticks, no drones. Some artworks have a no photography sign, we ask that you please honor this.’

The remaining rooms are devoted to temporary exhibitions featuring O’Keeffe’s contemporaries or artists influenced by her. At the time of our visit this meant a travelling exhibition called ‘From New York to Corrymore: Robert Henri & Ireland’. I didn’t previously know the work of Robert Henri, and sadly after seeing this exhibition I was not inspired to do so! Apparently he is regarded as ‘the leader of the urban realists group known as the Ashcan School,’ but the portraits of (mainly) Irish children were not really my thing I’m afraid. Nevertheless I was really pleased to have seen the works by O’Keeffe and that was, after all, the purpose of our visit.

On our way out we visited the inevitable gift shop, which was in fact one of the better examples of a museum shop that I have seen – relatively compact with high quality (and consequently expensive) items. I was tempted by some rather pricey silk scarves screen-printed with O’Keeffe’s flowers but managed to resist. We did however buy ourselves a small print – not one of her works but a good reproduction of an Ansel Adams photo of aspens which reminded us of our drives around the state. It now hangs in our lounge, a permanent reminder of this fantastic road trip.

We spent the last part of the afternoon relaxing on the small terrace of our casita, enjoying our little ‘home’ in the city.

Coyote Rooftop Cantina

The Coyote Café is one of the more upmarket places to eat in Santa Fe, and looked rather more formal than we usually opt for when on holiday – the sort of place you’d celebrate a birthday or anniversary maybe, but not for casual ‘any night of the week’ dining. But adjacent to it, and under the same management, is a rooftop bar and more informal eatery, the Rooftop Cantina, which looked more like what we had in mind for this evening.

We didn’t have a reservation but it wasn’t too busy so we decided to start by having just a drink while seated at the area put aside for drinking only, the table around the edge of the terrace. Perched here you have a great view of the street below, and, if you time it right (we did), of the sun setting at the end of the road. But my attention was regularly diverted away from the sun’s orange glow by the possibly lovelier glow emanating from my excellent margarita, which proved to be possibly the best of the entire trip – the ‘Norteño Margarita’, which they make with a tequila infused with green chilli. Fantastic!

Margarita at sunset

We then moved to one of the lower tables more suited for dining. I decided to have a change from the tortilla-based dishes I’d been eating, so chose the salmon served with polenta and hot chilli sauce: ‘Fire Grilled Atlantic Salmon with Crunchy Fried Polenta, Bird Chile Sambal Sauce, Organic Lettuces & Pepinos’. Chris had the Kobe burger: ‘American Snake River Kobe Beef Burger with Manchego Cheese, Crispy Fried Vidalia Onion, Greens, House made Beer Pickles, Tomato & Cilantro Mayonnaise, Sweet Habanero Tomato Ketchup & Boardwalk Fries’. Both dishes went down very well indeed, although mine was a little on the small side – I compensated by pinching a few of the French fries that came with Chris’s burger! We shared a dessert, a ‘trio of sorbets’, and although the bill was higher than we paid elsewhere on this trip, it did include our pre-dinner drinks, including that wonderful margarita! We felt the quality justified the slightly higher prices, and with more time in Santa Fe we would definitely have come back here again.

After dinner we went back to the El Paseo Bar where we had drunk last night. This time there was no live music, and we enjoyed it rather more. The bartender poured a generous Jack Daniels, the non-live music was much more to our taste than the live had been, and there was a friendly, buzzy atmosphere without it being too busy.