Trolley Tour in San Miguel de Allende
Would you like to make a trip to the past?
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Do it with us on board our colourful Trolley that crosses the main streets of the city and historic sites where the independence of Mexico was forged in the company of our qualified tourist guides.
San Miguel de Allende, elegant and cosmopolitan city, mixture of festivals traditions, art, harmonious architecture and quiet atmosphere has taken it to be one of the most tourist places in Mexico. Reasons for which many famous personalities have established in San Miguel de Allende their residence.
Appreciate the city from its highest places, walk through the cobbled streets framed of colourful flowers, elegant mansions and contrasting old houses, give passage to the Parish of San Miguel Archangel, peculiar by its gothic architecture and reference point to any visitor. |
Its large rambling houses and churches are proof of the importance of this city during the times of the Viceroyalty. The country's War of Independence was plotted in the drawing rooms of some of these impressive homes. The conspirators took advantage of gatherings where they met in order to plan the uprising. Among these men were don Ignacio de Allende, the Aldama brothers, don Francisco Lanzagorta and many other residents of the city who have gone into history as Mexican heroes.
San Miguel el Grande, San Miguel de los Chichimecas, Izcuinapan, as it was formerly called, was established in 1542 by Fr. Juan de San Miguel, a Franciscan, on a spot close to the Laja river, a few kilometers downstream of its current location. Eleven years later, as a result of attacks by the Chichimecas, it moved to the mountainside where it is now found, close to the El Chorro springs which provided the city with water from its establishment until a few years ago. The springs have now been exhausted by the excessive drilling of wells around them.
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Our Tour visit this places:
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Jardín Principal
This area has been the Heart of the city since 1737. However during XVI and XVII centuries it was known as Plaza Parroquial because the downtown area of the old Villa de San Miguel el Grande revolved around the Plaza de la Soledad known today as Plaza Cívica General Ignacio Allende. Its current garden-like appearance is due to the changes per – fomed around the last few decades of the 19 century, as it originally was a bare area with a fountain in the middle. The fountain was later replaced by another gazebo, in the mid 1950's
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Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel
The original parish church, built in the late 17th century, was fairly convencional in design. However in 1880 the master stone mason, Zeferino Gutiérrez was commissioned to create a new façade. Te resulting neogothic fantasy, inspired by drawings and postcards of European architecture.
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City Hall
The original City Hall was constructed in 1786, but little of the initial architecture remains. Nonetheless, it remais historically significant, as it was the site of the formation of Mexico's first independent city council on September 17, 1810; installed by Father Hidalgo and Ignacio Allende and led by Ignacio Aldama.
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Casa de Allende
Ignacio Allende's birthplace has become a museum telling the story of the region's history, as well as Allende's significance in Mexico 's history and in the War of Independence. The Allende's house dating to the 18 th century, this two-storey baroque building is a remarkable example of the homes built by the wealthy colonial nobility if the time. It was the birthplace of Ignacio Allende and a wedding present from his father to his mother.
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Beautiful Colonial building that in the old times it was the convent of the Santa Ana 's Church, then school and currently is reputedly Mexico 's second largest English language library.
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Plaza Cívica
This place has served many pourposes and has been redesigned several times. From 1889 to 1969 it housed the Ignacio Ramírez market, wich later gave way to a plaza that would hold the equestrian statue (not the current one) that was built to commemorate the 200 th anniversary of the birth of Ignacio Allende y Unzaga. In 1985, however, the statue was transferred to the place above the mirador where its stand today. Enclosing the Plaza on the north are three large structures built by church, particulary by Oratorian or Philipean priests.
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Centro Cultural Ignacio Ramírez “El Nigromante”
Another important spot fore arts in San Miguel is the Centro Cultural El Nigromante, located just around the block from the theater, on Hernández Macías street . Students and teachers from various countries meet there everyday. This former religious cloister is now a center for the study of the arts and museum, where all kinds of works of different period can be seen, from the original mural decorations to pieces of contemporary visual arts. The visitor can see an unfinished mural by famous Mexican Painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, a former teacher here. The original house was sponsored by Josefa Lina de la Canal and inaugurated on December 28, 1765
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Teatro Angela Peralta
This neoclassic theater was inaugurated in may of 1873 with a performance by the most famous Mexican opera singer of the day, Angela Peralta “the Mexican Nightingale”.
In 1915 it was built the current façade of neoclassic style.
Over 130 years later it is still an elegant venue for music, dance, theater and film and welcomes national and international artist.
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Oratorio de San Felipe Neri
The facade of the church is a beautiful and original example of baroque, very notable as much for its design and fine workmanship in stone as for its rare pink color. A good number of oils a precious collection of distempered sculptures are preserved in its interior. But the most notable aspect of the church is the Chapel of La Santa Casa de Loreto, located in its left transept.
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Santa Casa de Loreto
Manuel Tomas de la Canal , son of a rich grain merchant from Mexico City and owner of an extensive estate, founded, in 1732, and maintained this magnificent chapel dedicated to the virgin of Loreto. The interior of the side – chapel, with an octagonal floor plan, contains three marvelous gilded wooden altarpieces with distempered sculptures wich make it a prime example of exuberant baroque style. The ceiling consist of vaults held by crossed arches of clear Moorish influence.
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Templo de Nuestra Señora de la Salud
This inusual chapel owes its origin to the devotion of Father Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro for the virgen of Health and to his personal wealth. It was constructed in 1735 as a Chapel of the Collage of San Francisco de Sales. The handsome colored façade in baroque style, described by Miguel Malo as “incipient Churrigueresque”, is protected beneath an elegant and most ample scallop shell. Preserved in this chapel are fine paintings and sculpture.
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Templo de la Inmaculada Concepción
Better known as “The nuns”, or Las Monjas, this architecture was constructed by María Josefa Lina de la Canal y Hervas, eldest daughter of Manuel Tomas. She decided as well to found a monastery of religious Conceptionists in her native town. The building began in 1755 and was entrusted to the Architect Francisco Martínez Gudiño. Both convent and church were inaugurated the 28 th of December of 1765, although the tower and the dome were not finished until the 19 century.
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Excellent artwork can be seen inside, like baroque retablo in the lower choir, to the right of the main entrance, enclosed by a fine wrought iron grille. The southern façade shows the main entrance, where the visitor can witness the skill of the san Miguel artisans. The slender Cupola, designed by Zeferino Gutiérrez, was built in the late 19 th century; rumor has that its design closely matches that of the temple of the handicapped in Paris.
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This building that began in 1779 and was finished 20 years later, has a façade wich proudly figures among those of the lavishly ornamented Churrigueresque style. Its lateral frontispiece, says Miguel Malo, “…contains some of the finest, graceful estípites (pilasters in the shape of truncated inverted pyramid) of Guanajuato Churrigueresque. Its tower, attributed to Tresguerras, is in the neoclassic style, as well as the interior decoration of the church.
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Instituto Allende
In 1938, an art school called the Instituto Allende was founded in the old elegant country home of the Count of Canal. Its central courtyard, with massive stone fountain, roses, geraniums and the many colors of bougainvillea, echoes a tranquility that goes back to another time. It was the attraction of the institute that led to the growth of the town's foreign community, and now it is the most widely known art school in Latin America . Current student paintings are hung around the courtyard on corridor walls and in little side rooms.
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Tradition says that finally the 29 of September of 1542 the first Spanish town of the land Within was founded: San Miguel de los Chichimecas. Due to the topography of San Miguel de Los Chichimecas it was an easy pray for the Copuces who had been living in the zone for the last three hundred years and were not willing to change their way of living and fought fiercly over their land. Aproximately around the years 1551 and 1552, the town guarded by Cossin, was fiercly attacked by the Copuces until they were able to burn the whole town and to kill every inhabitant. Sortly after, they had to move the town form ots original location to another place that gave less advantage to the attackers, It seems that the new location is what we know as the barrio “El chorro” with better topographic characteristics than the previous site. The defense was in a privileged position as well as the fact that it counted with a water spring near by.
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Casa del Mayorazgo de la Canal
Located on one of the street corners that lead to the main garden in San Miguel Allende, the palace formerly known as the Palace of the Count de la Canal - because it was he who built it - is a good example of the aristocratic homes of the XVIII Century.
Its majestic façade of a neoclassic style bears the family's coats of arms. On the second floor there exists a niche with a sculpture of Our Lady of Loreto, the patron saint of the family, flanked by two pairs of columns that hold up a medallion with the coat of arms of the order of Calatrava to finish top it all off.
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