Santa Fe is undoubtedly an amalgamation of Native American, Spanish, and Anglo culture, therefore it only is smart to dabble in each. You might as well start strong (and early — today is jam-packed!), by using a Native American-inspired breakfast at Amaya, with the Hotel Santa Fe, the city’s only Native American-owned hotel. It’s in downtown Santa Fe’s Railyard District, and so on Saturday mornings, this neighborhood has one of the greatest farmers’ markets in the united states. (Definitely stop for people with time.)
Thus breakfasted and fortified, go get the total picture on the city’s cultural diversity by using a vacation to Museum Hill. This really is four cultural experiences in a: Choose the retablos and santos at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art (truly the only museum available in america), begin mastering the Kachina carvings and pottery in the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, note the colors and textiles in the Museum of International Folk Art, and wrap all of it program a wander across the Wheelright Museum in the American Indian, the location of among the better Native American art while in the state.
If you\’ve the perfect time to spare, go to the Santa Fe Botanical Garden on Museum Hill. It’s a little bit oasis loaded with colorful gardens and orchards, lots of native plants, and notes of Southwestern architecture that bringing it altogether.
Lunch and Afternoon
When you’re fed up of feasting your eyes as well as feast the remainder of you, head just north of Museum Hill to El Farol, a historic Spanish tapas bar (opened in 1835). Use the mejillones — mussels inside of a tangy tomato sauce with hazelnut picada and herbs — and in case you’re running late due to your busy morning, rest, as happy hour starts at 3pm.
But don’t linger too long. El Farol sits in the middle of the Canyon Road art district. Grab a bottle water and take your eyes on another artistic trek. This is definitely one of several country’s most iconic streets — all-around one mile of galleries, boutiques, and restaurants, all set with the foothills on the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. And, yes, there’s an abundance of Old World charm and classic adobe architecture to close the sale.
Dinner
Because today is focused on learning, and since Santa Fe is known as a culinary destination, you’ll probably want to post some skills to impress your friends back. Go on a class in local cuisine within the renowned Santa Fe School of Cooking (they give you both demo-style and hands-on classes). The best part? You\’re able to consume the fruits within your labor, and trust us — after some direction and supervision, you’re definitely a greater chef than you thought you\’re.
For after-dinner libations and sunset-gazing, order a mezcal cocktail over the ultimate people-watching patio at Coyote Cantina (in the event the weather’s warm), or get slightly snazzied up and head into an enormous amount of craft cocktails, Prohibition-esque chandeliers, and live jazz at Tonic.
SUNDAY
Morning
Get bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with breakfast downtown at La Posada de Santa Fe, extra resort and spa just off the Plaza. A historic destination alone, La Posada once was in which you home of Santa Fe art collector Julia Staab, whose ghost is alleged to haunt a number of the guest rooms and the restaurant that bears her name. When you sip your mimosa, you may meander over the hallways, in which a curated collection of contemporary art graces the walls — and make your skills out for Julia…
Then, prepare yourself for…you got it right: art, art, and even more art. Santa Fe is among the most country’s largest art markets, in any case. Invest some time and acquire a flavor in history on the New Mexico Museum of Art, just across the road from La Posada. It’s housed within a Pueblo Spanish Revival building in accordance with the aesthetic of colonial-era mission churches (as are most buildings in downtown Santa Fe, by design).
Then it’s on explore the works of 1 of Santa Fe’s own on the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. You’ll see her art — including her most iconic pieces — here, but you’ll also get looking into how she worked where. After all, fundamental essentials landscapes that inspired her.
Lunch
La Fonda Hotel doesn’t just occupy the oldest hotel site in Santa Fe — it occupies the oldest hotel site in the united kingdom. Records date way, in the past to 1607, right around in the event the city began. The digs inside really are a somewhat more modern, however — their recently renovated and many venerated La Plazuela bar and restaurant serves modern Southwestern cuisine and amazing margaritas (they’ve got three options on the Margarita Trail) surrounded by the skylights and hammered tin associated with a 1920s-era patio.
Thanks to the old roots, La Fonda (Spanish for “the inn”) is definitely the only hotel about the historic Santa Fe Plaza, so that it is an outstanding launching pad for examining the heart of the city’s downtown buzz. Here’s what you’ll find nearby:
- The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis, a Victorian-era cathedral built by Archbishop Lamy and featured in Willa Cather’s Death Comes for your Archbishop (yes, that Archbishop). If it looks incomplete, that’s as it would be — the work ran from money plus the two towers were never finished.
- The Palace of the Governors, once a fortress where Governor Lew Wallace wrote the classic Ben Hur, is currently a 400-year-old museum where people in any local Pueblo communities display handcrafted jewelry under its block-long portal.
- Between the plaza and also the cathedral is definitely the IAIA Museum of recent Native Art, a culture-spanning variety of new art of through North America’s indigenous peoples, plus the merely one of this type existing. All this began with each student honors program, and after this it’s the most important bunch of contemporary Native American art worldwide.
Afternoon
You’ve seen Santa Fe’s artistic past — now it’s here we are at a search into what’s yours for the taking money. Head as a result of the city’s newly reimagined industrial district for just a vacation to the Meow Wolf art collective’s psychedelic fun house, The House of Eternal Return. Created by local artists, it basically transcends words, though “a 20,000-square-foot secret portal into science fiction and neon” is an effective start.
Mind sufficiently blown, pop on the horizon on the new Second Street Brewery Rufina Taproom for any El Gato IPA or one of the sours, or head across town to Duel Brewing to get a Belgian-style ale (their Fantin and Bad Amber deserve serious kudos).
Dinner
Go for just a combination plate — that could be, certainly one of everything, because you can and ought to — at Maria’s, upon Cordova Road several minutes from downtown. The grandmadre of Santa Fe’s New Mexican cuisine scene, here is the place for chile rellenos, spicy carne adovada, giant margaritas, and pillowy sopapillas, where they’ll ask you a certified state question: “Red or green?”
Hint: The answer will be “Christmas.” Here, it’s always Christmas.
