We returned home to Sauna Pancho on the nineteenth of September. That was way too early, but we knew that going in. We spent a week stunned by a 117° heat index doing whatever organizing for home and gallery we could fit in between long air-conditioned siestas, then packed the RAV and hit the road to high country.
We stopped in Ajijic for a visit and to watch the total lunar eclipse from Travis's roof.
Our further destination was central Mexico, the launch site of the Mexican Revolution, that dramatic high plateau of desert and forest and cropland so different from our jungle beach pueblito. It just so happened that during the two weeks we had decided to flee the heat before preparing to open the gallery, San Miguel de Allende was celebrating their biggest party of the year, their saint's name day. I knew Craig would flip out. I'd been there before, and so have you if you've been reading for a few years, but he'd not yet seen colonial Mexico nor the joyful insanity of La Fiesta de San Miguel.
From the house we rented, it was three long blocks downhill to Correo, then two sloped blocks further to the Jardin Principal, the main plaza. I couldn't wait to show Craig La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, which I find to be one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. So we took our first walk of many on the night we arrived.
I love the story of this building, which is only a parish church, not a cathedral at all. It was built in the 1600's and was quite plain in its first incarnation, with the classic simple Mexican facade. Then, in the 1880's, an indigenous stonemason and bricklayer who had taught himself architecture took on the job of remodeling it. It is said that Zeferino Gutierrez used postcards and prints of European Gothic churches as his inspiration, but his design and execution were totally his own.
It looks as if it were made with icing piped from a cake decorator's cone.
It is fluted and columned, arched and turreted, lofty and elegant and kitschy and convoluted beyond belief. Its colors change with the rising sun, with the setting sun, in the daylight and in the dark.
I know, I can't help it. And these are only a few of the photos I took of this delicious and whimsical confection.
Okay, just one more...from a distance.
When we were not sitting at the Italian restaurant at the corner of the plaza gazing at the church and watching the festivities, we were wandering through the streets, cameras in hand. How can one not gape at the beauty of the architecture, the intricacies of the scenery, even the doorways and the simple daily sights of this little city?
I have more. Lots more. I haven't even taken you to the festival yet. We'll do that next, shall we?
In the meantime, I leave you with one more photo of La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, just because.
Thanks, Pip! I know you'll enjoy SMA so much, and soon.
That last picture is actually a photograph of a reflection of the Parroquia (in a glass windscreen on a restaurant roof), with the sky behind. Like a fairytale castle...
xo C
Posted by: Candice | October 21, 2015 at 02:32 PM
Great double exposure on La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel and everything else too my dear - Gorgeous- thanks for sharing- can't wait to get there ...
Posted by: Carol the Pip | October 21, 2015 at 02:27 PM