Welcome to America's oldest. . . or second oldest city!  (Depending on who's doing the counting!)

Summer time sunset over Santa Fe

Above and below: gorgeous, fiery colors of a New Mexico sunset

Waking up in Santa Fe on my first full day in the city.  Interestingly, even suburban architecture in Santa Fe must adhere to strict design themes. . . which I personally think is a great idea since it's the Adobe and Territorial architecture that makes the city such a unique American gem.

Small windows keep the excessive heat from the sun to a minimum.

Nice desert color scheme and design motif of suburban Santa Fe

Beautiful yet subdued colors of suburban homes blending into a clouded sky above

The Inn and Spa at Loretto hotel, a relatively new yet traditionally designed building that fits wonderfully into the surrounding Santa Fe architecture.

Wikipedia has an interesting section on Santa Fe architecture and history on its website here.

View of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi from E. San Francisco Street

Adobe style

Elements of Santa Fe architecture

Intersection of Old Santa Fe Trail and East San Francisco Streets

Above and below: mini-street show near Santa Fe Plaza including a dog, a cat and mouse.  I'm not sure how the guy has gotten to get these three antagonistic creatures to co-exist so nicely, but he has.  Of course, tips are certainly welcome for his efforts!

Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in the afternoon July sun

East San Francisco Street

Above and below: nice little street side restaurants.  Great places to stop for a bit to eat.

Heritage adobe architecture downtown

Me walking around the area just west of downtown where our hotel was.  Nice desert colors.

A United States Postal Service R2-D2 mailbox.  Cool, eh!

Me along Canyon Road

Nice, simple yet cozy local architecture

Institute of American Indian Arts Museum on Cathedral Place . . . with gas guzzling 1970s La Bamba mobile.

Along Santa Fe Plaza

Along Canyon Road

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

One should never mix money and relgion!  ;-}  Nice Porsche, though!

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

Looking for chilies!

Chili wreaths and chili strands called ristras. 

Pottery for sale

My mouth waters just looking at all these yummy chilies!!!

Me getting all excited over a nice fat ristra which I came back the following day to purchase.

YUMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Above: chilies are everywhere in Santa Fe and are hung from homes, hotels and other buildings as decorations.

Above and below: local architectural elements

Walking down West San Francisco Street

Above and below: local architectural elements.  Gotta love these wooden doors!

A summer storm cell forming over the city in the early evening

My friends Barbara and Liz who live in Santa Fe and whom I visited for the first half of my week in the city.

The old Santa Fe train station

A train which apparently does regional tours through the local mountains

Choo choo!!! 

PS: I used to want to be a train conductor when I was a child... these days I'm more into Japanese bullet trains and magnetically levitated German trains.

An information board at the Santa Fe train station discussing the city's train history

Above and below: a mural painted on the side of a building we stopped at for lunch one day

The central plaza of Santa Fe

A group of local youth dancing in the plaza

Here I am in Santa Fe!

The New Mexico emblem painted on the side of the Santa Fe police cars.

Some wild spider-looking piece of art work

The Loretto Chapel - built in 1873

Inside the chapel

The so-called Miraculous Staircase.

Below: and just down the street a block or so, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assissi

Above and below: stained glass windows of the cathedral

Canyon Road: an art lover's paradise

I'm in love with this piece!

Bronze woofie behind me

A spectacular gallery with brilliant bronze sculptures

Note the musculature of both the man and the beast

The attention to detail is excellent

Small child pulling an arrow out of the rear of a bear

The bear doesn't look too thrilled!

My father and step-mummy

Two bears of a feather. . .

Your for a mere $110,000!!!

Projject Tibet: Shangrila Tibetan Rugs & Gifts

A small gallery along Canyon Road

Interesting Japanese Shinto Shrine à la Santa Fe styel

A hard, bronze statue.  Truly gorgeous. . .  and it looks incredibly real!

Metal rhino.  Very cool!

It's not every day you see a giant rabbit like this in someone's back yard!

Dancing elephants

Quaint local pueblo style architecture with spider web windows

A local residential home

Bronze work nestled in the garden of a nice local home

Beautiful example of local residential architecture

And interesting hybrid of ancient Roman architectural elements with Adobe inspired colors and structure

Our little hotel for the week

Left: apparently Pippi Longstocking was in town that day riding up and down Canyon Road on her unicycle. . .

An interesting if albeit overly optimistic approach toward the long hoped for reconciliation amongst members of the world's apparently Great Religions and Ideologies parked outside the Ten Thousand Waves Japanese public bath in the hills boardering Santa Fe.  Barb, Liz and I rented our own spa facility for 90 minutes and enjoyed a nice afternoon of rest and watery relaxation.

 

Interestingly, the name of the spa is Ten Thousand Waves although the company uses the ancient Chinese character for ten thousand instead of the modern Japanese one. As such, if anyone reading this website can speak Japanese, please let me know if the pronunciation should be man-ha or man-nami as per the kanji citation I found for both characters in my trusty ol' kanji dictionary to the left. Thanks! ISBN: 469-03107-0 Copyright: T.Kamata, T.Yoneyama 1987

 

The interior change room

Something I've missed for years and years since leaving Asia in 2000: a traditional Japanese bath.  You sit on the little stool, soap yourself up, rinse off, then get into the tub already clean.  One of these days when I buy my own home, I would love love love to install a traditional Japanese bath.  They're very relaxing and theraputic.

A little nap room which opens up to the front of area of the spa complex: nude bathers beware as all your private bits and parts are easily viewable from passers by below if you get too close to the railing!  ;-}

Our own private little sauna

Barbara sitting in the slate tile spa

Liz in the spa.  It'd be great to sit there during a winter storm with snow falling outside!

Barbara enjoying her own Ten Thousand Waves!

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