On my last full day in Santa Fe, I got up in the morning and walked over towards the main Santa Fe Plaza to shop and wander about. My first stop was at El Santuario de Guadalupe, which was built in 1781! It is not a church any longer, but an art and history museum. It sure is a pretty, old building.
Next, I strolled down to the St. Francis Cathedral and milled about trying desperately to get a photo of the church without people everywhere. Apparently you have to get up at the crack of dawn to accomplish this feat. Anyway, still pretty, even with strangers in the photos :). I did realize my desperate need for a wide-angle lens though when trying to photograph both the insides and outsides of these churches.
Another try at artsy.
One of the bell towers with the blue iron fence.
My next goal was to walk over to the Loretto Chapel and try to photograph the "miraculous" spiral staircase. On the way, I ran into a few sunflowers. I am coming to realize that I have a thing for sunflowers.
Oh look! I'm on Route 66!
Arrival at the Loretto Chapel, which was built in 1873.
Here we go into the church...
More people in my shot, darn it. I even waited about 30 minutes, but they just kept coming :). Anyway, this is The Miraculous Staircase. Legend has it that it was constructed or inspired by St. Joseph the Carpenter and was supposedly built sometime between 1877 and 1881. It took at least 6 months to build and has two 360 turns with no visible means of support.
There! I cut them out :)
After visiting the Loretto Chapel for awhile, I headed out to do some shopping. Santa Fe is full of wild clothes and beautiful jewelry. As I was emerging from an underground shop, this beautiful pot was right in front of me. Besides visiting a few shops (Santa Fe School of Cooking and Spirit), I also spent some time admiring all the beautiful Native-American handmade jewelry at The Palace of the Governors. I found the artist that I bought a couple of necklaces from in 2006, and I bought one to replace the one I lost, which was my all time favorite necklace! That was pretty exciting!
Around noon, it was time to start heading back to the condo. My friend and I had lunch reservations at El Farol on Canyon Road at 1 PM, and then we were walking the galleries. As I was just about to cross the street, I heard a lot of commotion going on in this tree. This raven was making all kinds of noise. It was hoping around from branch to branch making some interesting noises. It was not the noise a crow makes, so I am pretty sure it was a raven. Anyway, we stared at each other for awhile, and he/she actually seemed calmer with me there. Not sure what that was about.
Next and final Santa Fe post will be from Canyon Road. Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment