San Miguel de Allende!

San Miguel de Allende is an extremely charming and romantic city. Recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is located 4 hours from Mexico City to the northwest and is worth a visit. The cobblestone streets complement perfectly the colonial style of the houses and buildings that you’ll discover while walking through the city, something that we greatly recommend as the city is small, safe, and very walkable. We spent an entire day wandering around the streets, taking a ton of pictures, and climbing up to the lookout where we got a great view of the entire city.

In the main plaza is a cathedral the likes of which are rarely seen; it’s simply remarkable. It has an imposing Gothic style that gives a touch of magic to the park where it’s located and even more so to the city. It’s worth the effort to go to the main plaza once during the day and again at night: in the day to see the daily life of the town and to see the children from the nearby school playing, and at night to see the church beautifully illuminated.

San Miguel has a lot of history and many important figures from the days of Mexico’s independence lived there. We asked some children in the main plaza to explain some of the histories, but we still have a lot to learn!

Something a little strange about the town is that it isn’t that touristy (it’s pretty far from most tourist parts of Mexico), however, it is full of ex-pats, the majority of which are retirees from the U.S. It’s estimated that ex-pats make up 20 per cent of the population. Well, we wouldn’t want to live there, but for the beauty of the architecture alone we recommend a visit for one or two days.

• Lodging:

  – We stayed at Hostel La Catrina, located about 4 blocks from the main plaza. The service we received from the Spanish owner (he runs the hostel with his Mexican wife) was spectacular; he recommended the route we should walk, outlining it on the map, and he spoke with us for a long time about other parts of Mexico, always making himself available