San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

 Parroquia and El Jardin

For the past few years we have chosen to spend a few months in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  Some have asked why?

More than anything, the city fits who we are and how we enjoy living.


Situated in the high desert about three hours northwest of Mexico City, SMA is a medium sized city that we can enjoy as a small town with lots of big city amenities, like cultural events, entertainment, and a wide range of good restaurants.

Parroquia at night

During our second visit and first long term stay in 2014, we found a little apartment on AIRBNB in Centro, the historic heart of the city, just a block and a half from the main plaza, El Jardin.  It is called El Jardin, or The Garden, because of its French design.  It is a tree shaded oasis in the middle of the cobble streeted downtown.

Often thronged by locals and visitors, alike, it can also be a quiet place for reading and contemplation.

Dinner at our apartment

  Maria Luisa, our landlady, is a wonderful host and  makes sure to invite us to her country home for gatherings that always end with several of her friends bringing out their guitars and singing  traditional Mexican songs and ballads.

Our Mexican friends seem to know all of the words to all of the songs, and we are learning some of them as well.  This year we invited Maria Luisa and some of her friends to our apartment.  After dinner the guitars came out and we were treated to beautiful music once again—so much fun !

Night view from our rooftop patio

Our street, Mesones, and really our  block, have just about everything you need for a comfortable existence.

Next door there is a green grocer; and since he seems to supply restaurants and other stores throughout the town, his produce is always fresh, inexpensive and abundant.

Sue, Maria Luisa and Chelo on our patio

Sue, Larry and Bob on our patio

Two doors up from the green grocer is a dry goods store, Bonanza, that in many ways caters to the expat and tourist community by carrying things like Thai, Chinese, and Indian spices as well as good cheeses and olive oil. Next door to that is our favorite carnitas or roast pork store.

Mesones, our block, at dusk

At the end of the block is a great butcher and just around the corner is a little liquor store run by one of favorite local merchants, Senor Mario.

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t visit one or all of these stores to stock our home larder.

We love being in the middle of the city where we can walk or taxi to almost anything we want to do—concerts and other musical events, favorite eateries, or visits with friends, both old and new.

Media Luna, our favorite band 

You cannot call SMA a typical Mexican town; it is far richer than the norm and full of expats and visitors, both Mexican and foreign. Except for holidays and fiestas, though, it is usually fairly quiet during the workweek.

The streets and sidewalks are full of car and pedestrian traffic throughout the day, but  by early evening the streets are often quiet and at times seemingly deserted.

An Outdoor Concert

Centro, where we live, is full of restaurants, hotels, and shops, many of them high-end.

All are dependent on tourists, both foreign and Mexican.

Walking on the streets, you pass many non-Mexicans and many of them look a lot like us—white, older, and seemingly in retirement.

Some wag once said that San Miguel is Disney World for seniors, and that is as apt a description as you might want.

Even in the short time we have been regular visitors, the number of expats, primarily US and Canadian, but seemingly from all over the word, have increased sharply.  High end real estate development is visible everywhere.

Seems a lot of us want to get in on the Mexican Dream. Renting works for us, but  even if we wanted to buy, the market is now priced way beyond our means.

One of many lovely plazas in town 

That doesn’t stop us from enjoying our time here.

Each Friday, we buy the weekly bi-lingual newspaper, La Atencion, that lists all of what’s going on in town: films, lectures, music, live performance, lessons, and get-togethers.

Often there is far more to do than we can actually manage.

Carole and Sue at the hot springs, La Gruta 

This week we went to:

—an HD  broadcast of the NY Mettropolitan Opera,

— a concert by a young local musician,

— ate out at several restaurants, including breakfast, lunch and dinner,

— visited a hot springs just outside of town,


—dined al fresco along with a good friend of ours and her family  at a lovely "campestre,” or restaurant/park

Mary with Grandkids, Wyatt & Maeve, teasing Sue 

— and capped the week off with  walking tour of  El Charco, a beautiful botanic garden and nature reserve.

Cactus in the Botanic Garden 

Flowering Cactus

Lake at Botanic Garden

One more cactus 

Then there are Spanish classes for both of us, duplicate Bridge for Larry, sketching for Sue, and just strolling thru San Miguel’s charming and eclectic streets.

We hope that this will encourage some of you to visit this wonderful city along with us in the future.