T.T.: Visit Taos

This post is a combination Snapshots/Tip, since the Snapshots have been pretty sad lately, and I just got back from Taos and think you should go there, too. 

Not that I expect you're all going to book your tickets right now. I mean, I've lived in New Mexico for four years and only just now went. But I'm glad I did.

My brother and sister flew into Albuquerque and we all drove to meet in Taos. My drive was through the mountains and featured the best and worst of Western mountain driving.

Best=spectacular views, cool air, wildflowers lining the roadsides, a rushing stream right next to the road.

Worst=switchbacks and getting frighteningly close to the crumbling edge of the road on turns.

Despite the challenges, I enjoyed going slow, windows down, radio on. That's a real roadtrip, in my opinion.

No photos of the mountain drive, as both hands must be on the wheel at all times. This was just before I got to the mountains, when I was stopped for construction. Still got the windows down and the radio on. At this very moment, Ozzy Osbourne's "Mama, I'm Coming Home" was playing. Great song.

Anyway! 

I made it to Taos, where the main drag was all torn up for construction and the traffic was terrible. Taos is meant to be walked, not driven.

Taos, in case you don't know, is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in North America. The Spanish first arrived there in 1540, and were settled there by the very early 1600s. Given that, it's no surprise that the history of Taos is very much Spanish and Catholic. And, later, the artists arrived.

I was more interested in the former than the latter, though, so that's what we spent our time on.

We went to the main Plaza to start our day of walking. It was interesting, and there is certainly a lot to see there, but as the farmers market was currently going, it was mostly a shopping experience. I like farmers markets, but this was almost interchangeable with almost any other large farmers market, and I wanted to see Taos, not booths. 

One of the shops we went into, though, was run by Benedictine monks, and there was a monk working there who told us about the Spanish family chapels that can still be found all over town. Five of the Spanish families that lived near each other would all fund the building of a chapel, and a priest would travel to each in turn to say Mass. Many of these can still be seen, although they aren't open right now, as a Covid holdover. 

We walked to one, though, that was on what used to be the original main plaza. 

I don't have a photo of that chapel, but this is the shrine at Our Lady of Guadalupe, which was also not open. Boo.

The monk also told us about San Francisco de Asis, which is a short drive from the plaza. This is an impressive building. It was built in the 1700s on the site of an earlier church. The parish has been there since the 1500s, I think the sign said.

The building itself is imposing. It's adobe, and the face it presents when you first drive in has no windows, so it looks like a Foreign Legion fortress in the middle of the desert.

The giant buttresses also reinforce that impression.

The front entrance.

The colorful altar.

And the view from the altar to the front door. It's a very long, narrow church, obviously.

We also went to the Martinez Hacienda, which is a museum housed in the Martinez family's very large and old adobe house. It's been preserved and all the rooms set up so it gives an idea of what it looked like and what it was like to live there.

I, of course, was most interested in the kitchen. (That shelf thing on the left with the ladder leaning up against it is actually a long bed, so the sleepers would have the benefit of the heat from the fireplace. Clever.)

We only had one full day, so that was all we managed to fit in. I'm sure there are other things to see in Taos, but that will have to wait for another trip.