We’ve driven through Guanajuato, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, twice already but we’ve actually never spent more than a few hours there. Not good enough for a city that many consider to be one of the most beautiful in Mexico, so we scheduled a proper visit to the city that prolific local silver mines built and which played an early and important role in Mexico’s independence from the Spanish.

Built in a depression between dramatic mountains Guanajuato is a maze of steep, narrow streets and all traffic heading east to west use an underground tunnel constructed in the dry remains of what used to be a river. We won’t lie: it’s a bit of a driving nightmare, but it’s worth it.

This panorama of Central Guanajuato was taken from the Monumento a Pipila high above the city. (click image for larger panorama)

The city revolves around a densely-packed sprawling central area which is full of intact architecture from the 1600s and 1700s. Quiet squares, plenty of charming pedestrian streets and sidewalk cafes give Guanajuato the look and feel like a European college town. More than 20,000 Mexican students attend the Universidad Guanajuato and they mingle with students from around the world who come to town to attend the city’s many language schools. With so many students around there’s a broad range of places to stay, including plenty of hostels. We went in the other direction, however, and stayed at the Hotel Villa Maria Cristina, part of the conscientiously-vetted, full-service Mexico Boutique Hotels group.

The hotel, a converted and expanded mansion, is located slightly out of the fray of downtown Guanajuato in an area called Paseo de la Presa and we enjoyed being in a neighborhood within a 15 minute walk of the centro. We also enjoyed the hotel’s pool, hot tubs (indoor and outdoor), sauna and steam room–amenities not commonly found in city hotels.

Basilica de Señora de Guanajuato

High on our list of things to do in Guanajuato was the Museo-Casa Diego Rivera. Located in the artist’s childhood home, the museum features some lovely in-tact ground-floor living rooms and bedrooms plus a series of galleries on the upper floors of the building. We’ve seen a lot of Rivera’s work in various museums and in murals on public buildings across Mexico but his early work collected here was completely different. Here you can see Rivera’s sketches of traditional Mexican landscapes and even his attempts at Cubism. If not for the signature at the bottom most of us would never peg the stuff as Rivera’s. A bargain at 15 pesos per person.

In hilly Guanajuato the only access to most homes is via stairways up steep alleys.

Because Guanajuato is built amongst the hills, some of the town has sprawled upward onto the hillsides which means many neighborhoods require quite a hike up narrow, stone-paved alleys just to get to and from your house. We worked our way up a series of these streets to reach the Monumento de Pipila above town and all along the way we wondered how the many inhabitants deal with everyday household needs–like having a refrigerator delivered.

Built to honor a local hero of the war of independence, Monumento de Pipila is also a great place to enjoy sunset over the colors and church domes of Guanajuato. The walk up is also a great way to work up an appetite for rotisserie chicken at Restaurant La Carreta.

Not far from the restaurant is one of Guanajuato’s most famous sites: Callejon del Beso (little street of the kiss). This alleyway is so narrow that the second floor balconies of houses across the street from each other practically touch. On these balconies a kind of Mexican Romeo and Juliet doomed love story played out and the street has become a must-smooch destination in the city. Never mind that an anti-obscenity ad campaign in the city in 2009 momentarily gave the impression that kissing in public was forbidden. That is until Guanajuato’s mayor stepped in and proclaimed his city to be the “kissing capital.”

Pedestrians on bustling Calle Obregon in Guanajuato.

The trees in the plaza in front of the striking Teatro Juarez are some of the densest, lowest and best trimmed we’ve seen yet in any square in Mexico. The branches have literally grown together making a solid square around the plaza, like a tidy, green picture frame. This is lovely to look at or sit under but it makes it hard to get back from the theater far enough to get any perspective on the all-dressed-up structure.

Groups of singers and musicians gather around this square at dusk and start taking requests (and pesos) for surprise serenades they’ll slyly deliver to unsuspecting wives and girlfriends later that night.

This cafe makes good use of a bridge connecting two buildings.

One of the many fountains in Guanajuato.

The beautiful Teatro Juarez with a sliver of a moon rising.

The wide, inviting steps leading up to the opulent Teatro Juarez are a kind of impromptu  meeting place for students in  Guanajuato. The theater is gorgeous, but we wish they didn’t charge so much (35 pesos per person plus 40 pesos for a camera) just to go inside and look around.

Templo de San Francisco in Guanajuato.

About 10 miles outside of town, way up on a hill, sits the Cristo Rey statue of Jesus. At nearly 70 feet tall it’s said to mark the geographical center of Mexico. The only problem is that this is the second “geographical center of Mexico” that we’ve come across so far (the other one was in Tequisquiapan near Queretaro). We shouldn’t talk, however. We’ve been to two places that claim to be the geographical center of the United States.

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