After visiting Santa Fe, Will Rogers reportedly once said, "Whoever designed this town did so while riding on a jackass backwards and drunk." You, too, may find yourself perplexed when maneuvering through this, the oldest capital city in the United States. The meandering lanes and one-way streets can frustrate your best intentions. The best way to get a feel for the idiosyncrasies of the place is to see it on foot.
Like most cities of Hispanic origin, Santa Fe contains a plaza in the center of the city. Here, you'll find tall shade trees and lots of grass. The area is full of restaurants, shops, art galleries, and museums, many within centuries-old buildings, and is dominated by the beautiful St. Francis Cathedral, a French Romanesque structure.
On the plaza, you'll see Native Americans selling jewelry under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, teenagers in souped-up low-riders cruising along, and people young and old hanging out in the ice-cream parlor. Such diversity, coupled with the variety of architecture, prompted the tourism department here to begin calling this city of 65,000 residents the "City Different."
Not far away is Canyon Road, a narrow, mostly one-way street packed with galleries and shops. Once it was the home of many artists, and today you'll still find some who work within gallery studios. There are a number of fine restaurants in this district as well.
Farther to the east slopes the rugged Sangre de Cristo range. Locals spend a lot of time in these mountains, picnicking, hiking, and skiing. When you look up at the mountains, you see the peak of Santa Fe Baldy (with an elevation of over 12,600 ft.). Back in town, to the south of the plaza, is the Santa Fe River, a tiny tributary of the Rio Grande that is little more than a trickle for much of the year.
North is the Española Valley, and beyond that, the village of Taos, about 66 miles away. South of the city are ancient Native American turquoise mines in the Cerrillos Hills, and to the southwest is metropolitan Albuquerque, some 58 miles away. To the west, across the Caja del Rio Plateau, is the Rio Grande, and beyond that, the 11,000-foot Jemez Mountains and Valle Grande -- an ancient and massive volcanic caldera. Pueblos dot the entire Rio Grande Valley, within an hour's drive in any direction.
