Mirasia

Hello,
We were thinking of going to Guanajuato end of May, June for two weeks. We thought we had our minds made up but then saw the posts on San Cristobal. There is nothing recent on Guanajuato. Could you help us with your ideas between the two places? We love to explore but also need a bit of relax time. Like history, beauty and nature. Hope you can help. Thanks!

Stewbear

Guanajuato is IMO the finest/prettiest city in Mexico. I will be spending the bulk of my Winters there until I'm in the "Home" or in the Urn.

Mirasia

Stewbear,
thanks so much! I have been reading your posts and notice you know Mexico well so your opinion is important. Any suggestions on restaurants places to see or accommodation's? I think you rented an apartment so you might not know what's good. We are looking for a place with a nice pool. Thanks again.

Stewbear

There are a number of high end hotels but not sure about a pool.
You might post at http://gtolist.com/forum/
This is basically a expat site but is where I got the house I rented.
Yes wonderful eateries including several right on the Jardin that have "set" menus that are reasonable. Best restaurant in town who's name escapes but is but a couple of doors down the street from Diego Rivera's boyhood home costs us under $40 US including tip for a delicious meal.
In addition many of the cafes around town have low lunches as this is a college town. I ate such dishes as Paella for as low as 45 pesos.
Being a college town I attended opera, ballet & music concerts for 100 pesos ($8 US) each.
Guanajuato is the cleanest town I have seen in the entire World.
Another thing I loved about it was I had several college kids (usually 2 girls) want to interview me practicing their English while getting my opinion on their city.
As a 71 Ole Fart things like that keep me young. The city is a delight of colors & sights. Great Great walking city.

Mirasia

Thanks for the info. I'm getting excited to go now. May have more questions as we book everything.

pdx

I was in Guanajuato 15years ago and loved it. Everyone is a historian! We took a taxi out to some garden, belonged to some royal person, and the taxi driver said "Ah, he was a baron, but not a real baron, he bought his title!" Met people from all over the world. We stayed in hostel of sort and had a 3 bed room for three of us for $6 per person per night. We were hanging out with Germans, Brits, a Canadian, and a couple of cute Japanese girls. So much fun! We were not impressed with the food, it was too mild and not exciting. But don't let that stop you. Fun university town, nice artisanal wares, great plaza and plenty of historical venues. The Spaniards were not very nice to the locals but they did leave behind some lovely buildings. The city is very walkable. Take a tour to Miguel de Allende. Listen to the orchestra in the opulent theater. Eat goat tacos. Drink fresh juice from the market. Life is good.

CascadeBob

If you have two weeks you could visit both without being rushed. If you are flying into Mexico City you can catch a bus to Guanajuato, spend three days there (should be plenty) then return to Mexico City. Spend a couple days in Mexico City and then and bus it to San Cristobal (or fly into Tuxtla Gutierrez and take a van to San Cristobal)

Guanajuato is an old mining town with winding cobblestone streets and lots of activity in the bars and restaurants. It's also a university town so there's lots of nightlife and things going on. Lot of history in Guanajuato from Mexican Revolution and war of independence.

San Cristobal is a mountain, colonial small city with a strong indigenous presence (Tzotzil Maya in the area). It's more laid back than Guanajuato, but also in a completely different environment. From San Cristobal you can visit nearby indigenous towns or overnight trips to Palenque seeing Aguas Azules and waterfalls at Misol-Ha along the way.

I'd split up the trip between the two with a few days in Mexico city - lots to see and do in D.F. (Distrito Federal - Federal District.

SusanInToronto

I'd been to both and enjoyed both. They are very different from one another. If you've got 2 weeks, you could visit both of them as CascadeBob suggests.

Mirasia

Thanks for your suggestions. Do you think 2 weeks in Guanajuato will be too much? We were going to fly into Leon but we could look into Mexico city. How long is the bus ride and is it going up winding mountains? We were going to go to the hot springs and Morelia to see the butterflies. We haven't been on holiday for a year and a half so are really looking forward to this and want to have some down time as well. Whenever we go to Mexico we always do the beach but thought this time we would try something different.

Christina

I just booked a trip in July to Guanajuato and Mexico City! It's just a short vacation, though, so I'm doing 3-4 days in Guanajuato and about 5 in Mexico City.

So I've looked up the bus options. The bus takes 5 hours and costs around US$40, as I recall. There are a couple main companies -- ETN and Primera Plus. I am doing the bus back to Mexico City so didn't want to take that much time both ways (especially not on the day I am flying in as it's about a 5 hr plane trip for me, to start with). So I'm flying Aeroliteral from Mexico City to Guanajuato, that only takes an hour. Fare is about $175-$200 one-way. You can book that on Aeromexico's website, if you want. Of course you can book a flight into Guanajuato to begin with, I just couldn't get the flight I wanted as I'm using FF miles on Delta and they wouldn't allow me to book the flight with the aeroliteral extension. AA actually flies to Guanajuato from Houson, I believe. Delta does have a flight listed to Guanajuato from Atlanta in July, but it isn't approved yet and I didn't want to risk that (I didn't like the schedule as well, anyway).

this website has a lot of good info on buses between various cities in Mexico, the companies, time frame, bus stations, etc. http://www.mexperience.com/guide/ess...bus-travel.php

Mirasia

Thanks for info on buses and going to both Guanajuato and San Cristobal. Is it really do able without being rushed? It seems like a lot of sitting on a bus going back and forth to Mexico city. Will I be able to see everything in both places and still have some down time? I would love to see the falls they look amazing!

glover

Don't think you'll see butterflies in May/June near Morelia.
They're in the sanctuary places late Jan to maybe early March.
By May they'll be long gone. So scratch that off for this trip. It's a wonderful trip to do earlier in the year however. Morelia itself is a beautiful city though.

Have been to both Guanajuato and San Cristobal and enjoyed both immensely! I like Bob's plan above wherein you do both and Mexico City, which is wonderfully interesting. However, if you've got the money I'd definitely recommend flying from Mexico City to Tuxla - as the bus ride would be long (15 hours?) and definitely mountainous. I remember drive from south of Cancun to Tuxtla - many parts very beautiful and mountainous, curvy. but a long way.

Christina

It wouldn't be a lot of time on the bus if you are there 2 weeks and flew into Guanajuato, for example, then would have one 5 hr trip to Mexico City. San Cristobal is way far away past Oaxaca in Chiapas so I don't think you can even compare, I definitely would not take the bus to/from Mexico City to there if that's what you are thinking.

Mirasia

Yup realized the butterflies would be gone when I looked into it further. Too bad but that will just be another trip! Will look into flying to San Cristobal. Thanks for the good suggestions.

baldone

Volaris from MEX to Tuxtla is about the same price as a bus, about $1100-$1300 pesos depending on the dates. SCDLC will be somewhat cooler than GTO (with the exception of Palenque if you decide to visit ruins while in Chiapas) as May is still the hot season here, though the rains could begin at any time towards the end of your stay. The dry season (Nov.-May) is the best time to visit Agua Azul etc., since when the rains start, the water becomes murky. That said, given you want some down time, I'd probably stick to GTO and mix in some San Miguel and Queretaro with a Mexico City chaser. And don't forget leather shopping in Leon.

Mirasia

Having looked at everything and taking all your suggestions into account I think I may have to pass up San Cristobal this time. I just think it will be too much travelling around.
Thanks everyone for your valuable input! Please feel free to add anything else you can think of for us to do, we like getting off the beaten track.

jpie

My husband and I just finished Peace Corps service in Mexico and we were the first volunteers placed in service in the city of Guanajuato.

A couple of things:

If you decide not to try to do both regions, you might instead visit Queretaro and Guanajuato. One big advantage of doing that is that there is a direct bus from Queretaro to the Mexico City airport, so you could go to Mexico city-take a bus to Guanajauto then go from GTO to Queretaro by bus and then take the bus back directly to the airport. Queretaro is a lovely colonial town and I had to laugh when someone said Guanajuato is clean-everyone who lives there thinks it is dirty especially by the standards of Queretaro.


Of course you can also look into an open jaw ticket flying into Leon and out Mexico DF. Also be aware there is no bus service from the Leon airport directly to GTO. A cab takes about 45 minutes and is around 400-450 pesos these days I think.

Also if you do go to Tuxtla, it will be easier to take a bus from Guanjuato to Queretarto and then take the bus directly to the airport in DF so you wouldn't have to go into Mexico City at least.

Also I would agree that food is not the strong point in GTO-it is actually pretty well known for lousy food The best point of destination restaurant is probably Las Mercedes:

http://www.guanajuatoesparati.com/lasmercedes

It is in a small house in a neighborhood away from the center and the owner is a food historian

Others I would recommend:

Mestizo
La Taberna de Diego y Frida
Fonda Del Artista
El Midi Bistro
Peccato di Gola (our favorite Italian-again not in the center)
Centro Bharati (veggie Italian)

Also a friend we just saw in Florida said she got deathly ill at Los Campos Restaurante which is currently rated number 1 on TA but is new, so I would be aware of that.

One other little thing-summer is rainy season in GTO, so be sure to bring a poncho or umbrella-the town has numerous tunnels (19 to be exact) and when the rain happens you will see signs near the tunnels whose bases are painted with green, yellow and red stripes at the bottom-the red stripe mans the tunnel is flooded enough that cars shouldn't enter-so just pay attention walking in the tunnels if you happen to get caught in town during a storm. Rainy season usually starts in May and goes through Sept. but it doesn't rain every day and my experience of living there is it mostly happens at night which is nice

Mirasia

Thanks jpie for the good info. We are trying to avoid rain at all costs from what I had been reading I thought we would miss it at the time we are going. I like the idea of going to Queretarto and did have that on my radar as well. What about San Miguel? It seems like a lot of people are not too keen on it, should I leave it off the list?

jpie

San Miguel is nice as well-very "gringo-fied" about 11,000 retirees there I think. But the up side of that is there are good restaurants and things like spas, galleries, etc. GTO is much more of a Mexican toursit destination. But if you just decide to do the colonial center of Mexico there is no reason that you couldn't visit Queretaro, GTO and San Miguel. Queretaro is a big city but can seem small if you stay in the colonial center, Guanajuato is around 100,000 people and feels like a smaller college town and SM is actually smaller I beleive with some nice parks a fun market etc.

jpie

ANd as for missing the rain-it is hard to tell-usually rain starts in May but during drought times, it might not start til June