The church bells have been tolling most of the night, interrupted only intermittently by the blast of rockets soaring into the night sky. One resounding boom echoes throughout the city at midnight. Thi... read more

For some northerners, heading south of the border to live after a busy career, Mexico looks like the land of mañana. All they have to do is kick back and watch the monarch butterflies pass on their an... read more

The Theft of the Virgin is the ninth book in John Scherber's Murder in Mexico series. He tells a good story.

In The Theft of the Virgin, sixty paintings from the popular Vergruen Reference Collection of outstanding masterpieces of art — all forgeries — are on temporary display at the Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende... But are they all forgeries?

Paul Zacher, one of many talented artists in San Miguel de Allende, is our protagonist and for the most part our narrator.

Zacher suspects a scheme that is putting originals into the hands of very amoral and very wealthy collectors. read more

John Scherber's thoughtful and satisfying book, San Miguel de Allende: A Place in the Heart (2010), is a collection of stories about North Americans "who live here full time, as I do." San Miguel de Allende is their home.

The idea of the book originated when Scherber, after living in San Miguel for only eight months, began asking himself questions like: "What had I given up to come here, and what had I gained? What was my new role in the community? Was I an exile? An expatriate? Would I ever live in the States again? How did I react to Americans I saw here visiting? What had I done?" read more

San Miguel de Allende has, for decades, been one of the shining jewels of Colonial Mexico, a mecca for painters, writers, musicians or anyone with artistic sensibilities who has been touched by its anc... read more

I took one look around the tiny, dingy room I had rented and began questioning my sanity. It was December 2 and I was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, after a tiring 24-hour bus ride one thousand mil... read more

Being an expatriate has nothing to do with a lack of patriotism, it merely means a person who lives in a country he wasn't born in.

You must be thinking of ex-patriot; someone who's turned against his country. It's a different spelling, like here and hear.

Usually the reasons are about experiencing a new culture and a different kind of weather, as they were for me. And they're always about reinventing yourself against a background that in Mexico I think of as simpático. It welcomes people in a mood for a lifestyle change.

But how does it work, really? read more

I like the Moon Handbooks and I own several of them — well used, I might add. They are sturdy, easy to read, compact and therefore easily packable whether in luggage or purse or large pocket. This latest, a first edition, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato & The Bajío, covers one of Mexico's most popular tourist destinations.

A resident of San Miguel de Allende for several years, the author, Julie Doherty, writes both with affection and enthusiasm about the Bajío — a vast central plain that includes the states of Guanajuato and Querétaro.

She concentrates on two lovely towns, San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato, but she also offers us a glimpse of Querétaro City, Tequisquiapan, San Sebastian Bernal, Dolores Hildalgo, Mineral de Pozos, and the large manufacturing city of León. read more

Driving up the long rise into Mineral de Pozos, framed by the gray-brown humpbacked mountains once laced with veins of silver and gold, the visitor first sees the stone walls of the cemetery, the pante... read more

An American acquaintance of mine, who believes himself to be quite astute about such things, is in the habit of asking whether San Miguel de Allende is the real Mexico and, if it's not, where can it be... read more

Holy Week — from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday — is observed throughout Mexico. However San Miguel de Allende's fervor and pageantry are some of the most powerful and beautiful. The image of E... read more

Pope Benedict XVI makes his first visit to Mexico this month, which is important news in this predominantly Catholic nation. Appropriately, his visit — from March 23 to the 26th — coincides with Lent, the 40 days before Easter dedicated to reflection and repentance.

His predecessor Pope John Paul II visited Mexico on five occasions and was much beloved here. I was just a child during the last papal visit in 2002, a rowdy little Catholic boy who wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. read more

Flirting in Spanish is not a "how-to-do-it" book. It is the true story of Susan McKinney, the 33-year-old daughter of former NBA coach Jack McKinney, who moved to Mexico to write, but soon met and "fell hopelessly and utterly in love" with Carlos, a poor Mexican teenager.

The story began in 1992 in San Miguel de Allende. Susan, in Mexico less than three months and having "decimated whatever savings I once had," supplemented her meagre but easy-earned modeling income by teaching English.

Carlos, the poor Mexican teenager, was indeed wise for his years; after her first class was over, he alone "remained, still seated at the second desk in the middle row, watching me." read more

Popular Ajijic photographer Jay Koppelman has two things to celebrate this winter: one, the recent opening of Studio 18, on Colón 18 in Ajijic, which features exclusively his photographs; and two, the recent publication of the first collection of his Mexico photographs, in a handsome coffee-table format, The Through Line. read more

With his parents' permission, I took Fernando, my 12-year-old English student, to Guanajuato, the seat of the Mexican War of Independence, for two days. We ate at a sidewalk cafe that offered nutritious hot fudge sundaes and banana splits. On to Alhondiga de Granaditas, formerly the massive town granary.... read more

Someone has mistakenly put shrimp into the ice cream or else I'm reading the sign incorrectly — always a possibility as my Spanish certainly needs some work. But then again, when I order camarones a... read more