Steps from el jardin, in the shadow of la parroquia
“More than 40,000 of our readers rated the number one city in various regions around the world. Here are the top winners in each area.” — Conde Nast Traveler
We’re No. 1! According to Traveler’s readers’ poll, San Miguel de Allende is the top spot in Mexico.
A 2009 video short on San Miguel de Allende provides beautifully shot scenery and thoughtful and lyrical soundbytes about what makes the pueblo’s magic realism.
Amid the poetry excerpts of Andrew Oerke’s reading of “The Stepping Stones of San Miguel de Allende” and the music of Specer Brewer, videographer Alan Geoghegan puts together several fun facts about San Miguel De Allende.
In the 1770s, San Miguel de Allende already had a population of over 30,000, not even Boston with 16,000 or New York City and it’s 25,000 were as big.
The original name of San Miguel de Allende was San Miguel El Grande, founded in 1542 by a Franciscan monk.
There are 11 old churches in San Miguel de Allende built between 1542 and 1650
It was an important stop on the silver trading route from Zacatecas and many of the mines are in this area.
At the close of the 18th century, Mexico was producing 1/2 of the worlds silver, providing 2/3 of Spain’s revenue.
In 2009, San Miguel had some 80,000 inhabitants, including 7,000 to 10,000 foreigners.
In part, Spencer Tunick is famous for shooting 18,000 nudes in Mexico City’s Zocalo, one of the world’s largest city squares. What would he do on the more confined cobble-stoned streets of San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato?
Arturo Manrique’s “Making Off” is a short film documenting Tunick’s early morning photo shoots in the two colonial cities, the production crew’s brushes with bemused locals and their run-ins with the constabulary. Caught in the act, will the police agree that Tunick’s nudes are indeed art?
The short premiered at the 2011 Guanajato International Film Festival.
Intrepid Toronto Star journalist, Spencer Wynn, retraces his steps as he meanders through el jardin, el centro historico, as far as the contemporary art ateliers and galleries of Fabrica La Aurora. He also ventures further afield on day-trips: to Dolores Hidalgo for improbable flavours of ice cream and to Pozos to see the ruins of this former silver mining town.
The quiet and still air of delightful studies at San Miguel’s Instituto Allende will give way to more sultry and perfumed wafts when it hosts a Victoria’s Secret lingerie fashion show by rolling out a catwalk for 6 international super models spirited on by the irrepressible musical stylings of Mexico’s top DJs.
Click on the image and scan the QR Code (bottom right) for the link to the event’s Facebook page with all the details: http://www.facebook.com/events/157394871057429/.
Ian Munro feels the heartbeat of old Mexico in the 16th-century colonial city of San Miguel de Allende.
“San Miguel, and the 16th-century colonial towns that surround it, are distinctively Mexican, their cobblestone streets lined with one- and two-storey pastel-coloured buildings and crowded town squares watched over by elaborate parish churches.”
No sun and sand, it’s true, but so, so, much more. ¡Muchisisimo mas!
“Our latest vacation was as far from the bathing suit version of Mexico as one can get. In fact, San Miguel de Allende is in the geographic centre of Mexico, a six-hour drive in either direction to the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.”
It’s the bloody Beebe in San Miguel de Allende!
“Mexico’s most popular inland tourism destination is a town with a deep sense of independence.
Filled with colonial buildings, artists and ex-pats, San Miguel competes on price and culture.
Rajan Datar visits San Miguel to discover why the town is seen as the future of Mexican tourism.”
Fast Track airs on the BBC World News channel three times a week.
At the end of the 2011 San Miguel International Writers’ Conference, Tom Robbins, author of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Skinny Legs and All, and Still Life for Woodpecker, said,
“If Dante had had the San Miguel experience, he may have written more about heaven and less about hell.”
The Financial Times’ The Smooth Guide to San Miguel de Allende, answering the eternal question of “How to spend it? (Click on the image to read the entire article)
