The nation's oldest capital city has had the tag line "The City Different" since 1912. The village was on the map in the early 1700s, as shown in this section from a map by Guillaume de L'Isle, Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi, [1718-1730]. (click to enlarge).
The season here is in full swing and the tourists, in hats, are once again filling the plaza.
There is no finer fun to be had, no better place to experience mash-ups of deep cultures, no stunning blue sky and western landscape to be seen anywhere but here. It is not rare for people to come visit and have the enchantment bite them hard enough in the initial moments to decide to just come be a permanent part of this. If you haven't been, you must come. It has one of the highest concentrations of artists to be found anywhere. It is the light, similar to the South of France.
Mapping here? It is still "turn right at the blue gate, take a left at the tilted mail box, go up aways and when you see the hollyhocks, you are there."
The Pueblo Indian site in Santa Fe dates to 1050. The Spanish explorer Coronado arrived and claimed it for New Spain in 1515 and it was an official "Capitol" in 1598. Even though the town has no airport, and is very small, it is one of the top 5 art markets in the world. Going up the hundreds of galleries up canyon road , is better than a visit to many of the worlds finest museums.
Posted by: anthony | June 28, 2008 at 07:19 AM
Santa Fe is definitely on our list, but I chuckled at your directions. In spite of the fact that our landscape is completely different, our directions include, "go past the big rock and turn left at the shaggy dog."
Posted by: Janet | July 01, 2008 at 10:59 AM