San Miguel de Allende

We have come to the end of a long day, which turned out to be even longer than we expected. Sue set her alarm for 5:20, so that we could be packed up and ready to go for our 6:00 a.m. pick up this morning. We managed our 40 minutes well and were down in the lobby with five minutes to spare. That is when we discovered that it was actually only 5:00 a.m., not 6:00, as we thought. Sue's iPhone was still on Toronto time. Undaunted, we went back to bed and tried to rest a little for the next hour until our cab arrived at 5:50. I am in charge of alarms from now on. ;-)

We were so early that we were at the bus station with lots of time to spare. Our first class bus with ETN was very comfortable - our seats reclined, we had a sort of footstool to rest our legs, and we were provided with a drink and a sandwich, as well as a movie to watch. We tried to doze a little during our four hour trip to San Miguel because we wanted to make the most of our time here.

Our room at Casa Cinco Patios

Our B&B here is called Casa Cinco Patios because it has five patios. It is really quite nice and it seems as if we have the place almost entirely to ourselves. To get to the centre of San Miguel, we have to walk about 10 minutes downhill (which is uphill on the return trip, of course), but we like the exercise.

Mexican lunch

Mural and the Instituto Allende

At the tourist information centre in town, we were given a good map and some suggested places to walk on our first day. We chose a local cantina for a mexican lunch and then set out to explore the town on foot. Our route took us to the beautiful Instituto Allende, an international art and language school which also houses the work of several local artisans, and a restaurant.

Chris and Russell

While there, we struck up a conversation with Russell and Chris, an American/Canadian couple who were eager to share their love of this place with us. They bought us Margaritas, and then gave us a tour of some of the places they felt we had to see. Foremost among them was the Rosewood Hotel, a luxury facility with beautiful views over the town. They also showed us Toller Cranston's cluttered studio and several shops. Finally, they invited us to their spectacular rental home where we were wined (but not dined). What generous people! Perhaps we connected with them so well because Chris is a retired teacher/principal from London, Ontario, or because Russell's specialty is picking up women. Whatever the reason, we were very fortunate to happen upon them today.

The view from the Rosewood

Toller Cranston's Studio

Church Tower near Chris and Russell's home

Sunset

To end our day, we headed to the rooftop of Socialitte, an Italian restaurant, for some pasta and a glorious sunset. Thus refuelled, we were able to walk back up the hill for a relatively early bedtime.