Next we drive to the Albuquerque Old Town, it takes a bit to find a parking space and it is a prepaid one so we pay for 2 hours and then start towards the nearby Old Town. Albuquerque was a historic farming community before becoming officially a village in 1706 so it is one of the oldest settlements established by Europeans in the US.
The area is small but interesting with a few old houses, a couple old churches and some souvenir shops and restaurants and we intend to explore it for a couple hours or so.
Surprisingly there aren’t that many people around even though it is quite touristy. Maybe not surprising though, it is the MLK weekend, it is cold so maybe it is not top tourist season.
The main church is San Felipe de Neri which surprisingly we can visit, it is not as embellished as other Catholic Churches but is still interesting with solid walls almost us if to protect from invasions. Or more likely to protect from the heat in summer.
You can actually enter it and explore which is quite nice and a good way to escape the heat or the cold outside.
The most interesting sight on our tour is a quirky sculpture/chapel in a tree next to the church especially as it is unexpected and in a parking lot.
There are quite a few small stores with artwork and sculptures in the Old Town. We enter in a few of them but many others unfortunately are closed due to the holidays.
Overall it is quite interesting to explore the sidestreets of the main roads with the small stores and artifacts and houses built in Adobe style.
There is even an art museum near the Old Town and we enter its grounds and look at the outside sculptures and artwork but do not enter as we have only limited time.
We then explore the small Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe with some interesting artwork before continuing to explore outside.
We then explore the museum garden for a while, there are some interesting lifelike sculptures here that from a distance you could mistake with the actual thing.
There is a trading post, of course there is one in the old town, and a jail. Maybe actually an apartment building but we call it jail because of how it looks from the outside, it seems quite austere and off-putting somehow.
Another historic building in the area that we pass by is the High Noon Restaurant. It was built in the 1750s and started as a brothel before becoming a renowned eatery serving steaks and local cuisine. It looks interesting and maybe we should eat here in the future but today we are late already and have to leave for the Wildlife Preserve and San Lorenzo Canyon our next two goals for the day.
