Four Views of Guanajuanto

The top photo is looking up the track of the funicular, which took us up to the top of one of the hills surrounding the city.  The town itself seemed so big to us when we first arrived.  The streets are narrow and winding, some of them steep.  And houses and restaurants march up the hillsides around the town.  After a couple of weeks of wandering around the town, we realize it is all quite compact. 

The second photo (by the way, all are by Nancy) is a panoramic of the town.  We walked down from the summit, which has a gigantic stone sculpture of Pipla, a local hero.  A fair number of the residences we passed on our way down have access only by stairways and paths.  Groceries come immediately to mind.  How they get to the individual houses is unknown.  They must patronize the small tiendas located all over, on a daily basis, on foot.  If they own cars, and that's a big if, they must be parked far from the front door.  But in centro, the taxis are numerous and cheap, and the busses haul loads of people all over the city.  The bus ride in Guanajuato is really cheap, five pesos, or 28 cents US.

The third picture illustrates the local restaurant trade, and since the weather here is called  "eternal springtime", many serve up food and drink outside.  The climate here in the state of Guanajuato is fantastic.  We are here in the rainy season, but it seems to fall mostly in the late afternoon when the heat builds up, or at night.  It's far enough south that it never gets too cold and high enough in elevation that it never gets too hot.  Lovely, and conducive to eating out in the street, many of which don't allow automobile traffic. But not very many restaurants serve food on a footbridge over the cobblestoned road.