Albuquerque's First Neighborhood

"San Felipe de Neri Church"

--constructed in 1793

Just got back from a too-short trip to see my mom in New Mexico. My daughter and son-in-law went with me and it was a road trip worth chronicling over several posts, so that's what I plan to do. Loved the visit with my mother and her sister in Roswell, but I'm starting with this trip to Albuquerque's Old Town.



The appeal is that it's old. If you know me, you know I do "old" very well. (Witness some posts in the future about the golden past! When I get to it, that is.)




Styled in the traditional Spanish pattern of a central plaza and church surrounded by homes and businesses, Old Town still sports historic homes, some of which have been renovated into today's shops, galleries, museums and restaurants.

"Restaurant Antiquity"

An upscale menu, the most unusual to me was the champagne-marinated salmon. We didn't eat here. We didn't go to New Mexico to eat a $50 piece of salmon.

Cute Couple Cupola

Or is it a well?



The church again

http://www.sanfelipedeneri.org/

I like looking at these places as if people still lived in them and then sort of envying them their unique digs. Knowing that they are places of business--shops and museums--doesn't really have the same impact, though. It's just a little too touristy, although I love being a tourist, and commercial, althought I love spending money like a tourist.

Somewhere in here my daughter tried on some expensive clothes while I chatted with the shop-keeper about Ogden's ghosts. She and her husband bought a souvenier in a folk art store for his mother--a very cute, brightly painted, little pop-up tin creche folded down in a tin box.

I guess I forgot to take a picture of the Candy Lady's adobe abode, and that's funny because it's the only place I spent any money. I bought fudge with piñon nuts in it. Not nearly as good as Lydia's almond toffee-bejewelled fudge. I think it's not a big seller, what with piñon nuts in it when it could have walnuts or almond toffee, so it was probably on the shelf a while and was kind of crackly on top like it was old.

I don't know if you know this, by the way, but piñon nuts are not the same as pine nuts. They look and taste different. You can taste the tilde. I like them, but better just salty and split open between my front teeth--the way we ate them when we were kids--and not ruined by dusty old crusty fudge.