Tuesday 20 July 2010

Santa Fe













Santa Fe was one of our favourite places on this trip. In fact I think it was THE favourite. It is a very fun place to be - full of artists, good restaurants and a fabulous climate.

It also has a Trader Joes. We stayed in a rented house so on our first night in SF we went crazy stocking up on ice cream, Valhrona chocolate and fruit. Of course we bought too much which allowed Lucy to have ice blocks for breakfast on the last day.

The climate was amazing. Although it was 100+ degrees during the day the humidity was only 4% so it was still possible to do a lot of walking. At night the temperature dropped to around 50 degrees which allowed us to open up all the windows in the house and let the cool air in. The additional bonus is that there are no bugs so we could just leave the doors and windows open without flyscreens. Believe me this was so nice! In NC we can't go out to get the mail without getting bitten by no-see-ems or mosquitos.

We did a lot of walking to see the sites. Around the plaza we visited the New Mexico History Museum and the Palace of the Governors,as well as the Spanish Market and the Cathedral. We saw the State Capitol and the USA's oldest house. Fiona visited the Georgia O'Keeffee museum displaying some abstract work whilst the others went geocaching. Lucy and Andrew visited the chapel with the 'mysterious staircase'.

One day we wandered around Canyon Road visiting art galleries. We couldn't afford the hot price tags but we do have one piece of outdoor art in mind that we are going to order over the internet so stay tuned!

Lucy spent an afternoon at the local children's museum. It had some unique aspects including a huge bubble maker, a gluing station (Lucy spent an hour here) and a magnet table.

We visited a few of the museums on museum hill.










Food:
  • Lunch at Clafoutis. A small French cafe located a reasonable walk away from the center. Fabulous authentic food though the service was reasonably friendly. We enjoyed quiches, pastries and coffees. If we hadn't splurged at Trader Joes we would have been back for breakfast in a flash.
  • Dinner at La Boca. We arrived early in order to get a table so were in the middle of tapas. We ordered some really fun dishes which we shared together and enjoyed a glass of wine as we people-watched from our window table.
  • Lunch at the Teahouse. A healthy lunch spot along Canyon Road allowed us to relax outside under the shade of some trees which eating salads.
  • Dinner at La Choza. We were expecting greatness but this Mexican restaurant was not as spectacular as chowhound made us believe. It was good but not greater than any of the other Mexican we had enjoyed during our stay in NM.
  • Hot Chocolates at Kakawa. Now this place is something else. Not a traditional coffeeshop this place is a true hot chocolate shop. Most of the drinks on offer are not sweet and many are spicy. These chocolate beverages were almost meals in themselves and we certainly left energised to continue our explorations on foot.

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