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Santa Fe, NM

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Santa Fe, the state capital, a very un-American city oozes Native American culture from its Adobe  buildings to locally produced artefacts and jewellery.

                                




Our hotel, in the heart of downtown was adjacent to St Francis Cathedral.



The primary facade of the hotel is from the 1950s St Vincent's hospital and is a very good example of Territorial Revival style architecture.



On our first evening we found ourselves dining in a rooftop restaurant where quite fortuitously we had a perfect view of the Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse. Unfortunately we were unable to photograph it.

We decided to explore the city on our second day.

                                 

The Plaza in the centre while small in size is the heart of the old, historic city with the Palace of Governors (the oldest continuously used public building in America) on its north side.

Outer wall of front of Palace. 
We took a guided tour which allowed us to see more of the city than would have been possible on
foot because of the heat which was in the middle 90s. We visited the area known as Museum Hill and drove along Canyon Road with its numerous art galleries displaying their wares outside. Many of the
pieces were in bronze which can withstand all weathers including snow which they have from November until March. There are over 200 art galleries in Santa Fe and it is second only to New York  in its sale of art works which came as some surprise to us.





After the bus trip we visited the Georgia O'Keeffe museum where we viewed many of her paintings.
Although she was born in Wisconsin and studied in Chicago and New York, she spent the last 40 years of her life here.


Santa Fe with its variety of old atmospheric Adobe buildings, including the many art galleries has been our favourite city to date. 







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