In a land of smokey mezcals, rompopes, single-distilled raicillas, cervezas, tequilas, and Kahlua—that thick, sweet coffee liqueur made in Veracruz whose name in Nahuatl means the house of the Acolhua people—wine would seem to scarcely merit a mention. But in the 30 miles stretching between San Juan del Río and Bernal, known as the Querétaro […]
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Some say I have lived a sheltered life. For years and years, all I knew about Queretaro, Queretaro (pronounced keh-REH-tah-roh) was that it was a couple of hours northwest of Mexico City, had a photogenic aqueduct and was a likely place to purchase opals, which I didn’t really need. My history retention is vague but […]
Continue ReadingWriting a newspaper column about the greatness of another country can earn the writer a good deal of mail running the gamut from “Do you know a good dentist in Morelia?” to “My wife and I would like to know where we should start looking to live in Mexico.” I don’t know a Morelian dentist […]
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The Saturday movie-matinee feature of pre-television history introduced my entire generation to the mystery and adventure of lost cities lurking in the dank depths of the world’s remote jungles. Great white hunters slashed their way with machetes through vine-infested rain forests seeking the treasures of civilizations long gone from the earth. In the third reel […]
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Only a two-hour drive from Mexico City, Tequisquiapan is the second most important tourist destination in Querétaro. Although it comes to life on weekends, it retains the charm of a Mexico’s provincial towns. Pleasant hotels and restaurants abound. There are trails for mountain biking. Underground rivers flow to the surface in thermal springs that can […]
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We sat at a shady table at an outside patio listening to Pavarotti sing an aria while watching the silvery jets from a plaza fountain in 70-degree weather. This is my idea of the best way to spend a weekday lunch break in mid-December. I did just that in Querétaro, Mexico after having had a […]
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Sometimes in the evenings, after the sun has set behind the monolith that towers over the small village of San Sebastián Bernal, ánimas, or restless souls who sleep in the small graveyard near the old chapel, rise up and move silently through the quiet streets. The ánimas mean no harm. They are just continuing their daily round – what […]
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This article describes “a delightful little spa town too few foreign travelers have discovered”, to quote the 1979 edition of Fodor’s Guide to Mexico. Astonishingly, this description is as appropriate today as it was then. Imagine, if you will, the following: a small town, only two hours by car from Mexico City, with winding cobblestone […]
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Map of Querétaro Map of Querétaro SCT, 1999.
Continue Reading Querétaro yesterday. . . Querétaro was founded by the Spanish in 1531 on the site of a village of the Otomi Indians which, in turn, probably dated from around 1427. A number of events important in the history of the Mexican Republic have taken place in Queretaro. One of the heroines of the insurrection against Spain […]
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