San Miguel de Allende Day Trips

After leaving Ajijic we returned to San Miguel de Allende for a few weeks. Our good friends Mindy and Robert from Colorado have a house rented in San Miguel for the months of February and March, and we wanted to catch up with them. Mindy and I go back to my first years teaching in Colorado and it's always special to be able to spend time together.
Although this was their third visit to San Miguel Mindy and Robert hadn't had the opportunity to take many day trips so our goal was to take them to some new places. We spent a fun day in Dolores Hidalgo, and ended up packing a few of their purchases in the Bus to deliver to them in Colorado this summer. No charge for delivery other than a good Mexican meal cooked in their new purchases.

The other day trip was to Bernal, a Pueblo Magico that Brian and I have been to before. When I blogged about it  a few years ago I explained why it's considered such a special place - the following link has more photos and more information  Bernal Mysticism and History  Bernal is the third largest monolith (single rock) in the world, quite impressive.

Bernal is about 80 miles from San Miguel so we got an early start. We had hoped to get there in time to hike at least part of the way up Pena de Bernal, 'the rock', but were stuck in a traffic jam for 2 1/2 hours and didn't get there in time to do any hiking. Maybe next time. We did have time to wander around town a bit and have a nice lunch of gorditas and beer.

Below are Robert, Mindy and Brian with Pena de Bernal in the background. It can be seen from just about anywhere in town.

There's a lovely plaza in front of the church, good place for a photo op.

While the town was very quiet on the day we visited, a weekday, it was pretty clear that it was a tourist destination and I would imagine it can get pretty crowded. There are lots of shops, a variety of restaurants that were both upscale and budget, and quite a few places to stay. It's a very colorful town that's fun to explore. I took this picture of Mindy with the catrinas, and it reminded me of the puzzle 'which one is not like the others?'

We finished our day with some ice cream and a visit to the mask museum, Museo de Mascaras, which was pretty interesting and has a great mural in the front.