SanDiego1K

Welcome to FlyerTalk, bmcken. Did you see the recent NYT article on Hyder House? It's really fascinating. The article only talks about the extended family using it, so I will be interested to read hobarthoney's response.

shawbridge

We rented a house for a week there. It was called Casa Linda and it was quite nice. there are several real estate agents who specialize in renting houses to Americans/Canadians.

We actually found San Miguel a little slow and thought a week was too long. Guanajuato was fun for a day. Leon is not that interesting. We did a mountain-biking day, though it was a little hot for that. We did have fun at the hot springs. We did not make it to Patzacuaro (that looks beautiful), but did take a trip to the place in Michoacan state where the most of the Monarch butterflies of North America migrate for the winter. It was a longish drive and the accommodations in the town were so-so, but being with millions of butterflies was pretty special.

We flew into Leon, rented a car, stayed in a hotel there, and drove to San Miguel the next morning.

Although it is pretty, I personally would not put San Miguel high on my list. From a sociological standpoint, I found it quite interesting. It has become a place where lots of Americans and Canadians go to retire. There seems to be a be a set of new-agey 50-ish women who seem to have lost their way in life. We didn't find enough active things to do there. But, there are obviously people who love it.

bmcken

Thanks for the link, SanDiego1K. I visited the Hyder House once, when some acquaintances were renting it. It is pretty fabulous. Most people, I think, as the NYT article said, have connections to the family. And, Shawbridge, I found your comment about new-age 50-ish women hilarious! I must be one of those so you gave me a good laugh! Our family has rented three homes in San Miguel since 1997. We originally went so that our kids could take Spanish classes and get to know a different culture. Also, since we live in a large city where it's hotter than hell in July, the dry highlands air in SMA was just like going to Colorado - only cheaper. And nothing active to do? I don't jog, so I guess walking the hilly cobblestoned streets, exploring every interesting nook and cranny, seemed like good exercise to me. And there is wonderful horseback riding - galloping thru the countryside past centuries old chapels. And, yes, there is a golf course, but I understand they're building a very nice one a little farther away. The library offers home tours every Sunday and for those interested in interior decorating and/or architecture, what you find behind a plain facade will really amaze you. Painting classes on the rooftop of a former nunnery, cooking classes in private homes, great massages for a fraction of the cost in our city - what's not to like? No, it's probably not the best place for the 15-30 crowd. Sullen teenagers who want to go to the bars/clubs, but really aren't old enough probably wouldn't appreciate SMA. Nor, maybe, would the 20-somethings who don't understand the pleasures of real relaxation. But for my 8-14 year-olds, it was a real eye-opener for "new" ways to make their own fun - soccer in the street with local kids, a-penny-apiece bottle rockets, handcrafted puppets. It took a few days, but life finally just slowed down for all of us and we returned to reality refreshed and ready to start again.

hobarthoney

Hi bmcken I was a guest of the Hyders. The house is amazing and the food and the service from the staff is incredible. They do rent the house out but it is done by word of mouth they do not have an agent. I will ask how you would be able to rent it and get back to you. I know there are very few days when either the family or friends are not in the house.

shawbridge

You are probably not one of the species of new-agey fifties women we met. They are divorced or single and have moved there permanently. They are often house-sitting and taking painting classes. My wife is a fifty year old woman too and she paints, though she is a relatively well-known painter (the major museums in our area own her work, she has regular one-person shows at decent galleries, etc.), so I don't have anything against 50 plus year old women who paint. It just seemed like an unusual set.

I do have teenagers, though they are not into clubbing. But San Miguel over Christmas break was quite lovely, it didn't do it for them either. But, for February break, I took them to Nicaragua while my wife stayed home to get work done for a show. We helped out at a feeding program for kids who live in the municipal landfill in Managua (this was pretty shocking with kids sniffing glue to stave off hunger), drove/hiked ot an active volcano, took a ferry and then hiked to a fairly deserted beach, helped out with an educational program, took a sail boat cruise with barbecue to another beautiful beach, swam in a lake that is in the cone of a (hopefully) dormant volcano, helped a woman who takes kids from the barrio and raises money to get them private school educations so that they can go to college and enter the middle class. Even though it was much rougher, they enjoyed that more.

If you want a mystical experience, try the butterflies in El Rosario.

sonofzeus

Vegas was OK until 1990. Now it's filled with kids who think it's fun to buy a Priceline double at the Venetian and cram 8 inside.

But for the sub-standard restaurants and no beach, Palm Springs/Palm Desert would be my choice for a relaxing getaway.

world_citizen

Wow, was it with this little town I keep hearing so much about. I was just reading about it in More magazine. How it is this place where mid life women go to reinvent themselves. Sounds magical.

bmcken

Thanks, hobarthoney! I am really looking for a place to celebrate my husband's birthday next summer (a big one that ends with "0"). We've been to a couple spectacular parties in San Miguel at large houses like this, where you can invite several couples and there is a staff to handle everything. I look forward to any info you can get.

Tomayto

I am thinking of a trip to SMA in the second half of Feburary 2008. What airport do you fly into? What transportation do you take from the airport? What nearby towns do you recommend? How many days in all> Thank you.

hobarthoney

You fly into Leon/Guanajuato (BJX). We had cars pick us up and drive us to San Miguel. The drive is about an hour. I think a week in San Miguel is a good amount of time.

Have fun its a great place!

bzbdewd

I can't wait to go back! This is part of my trip report (for our family & friends) of our time in San Miguel.
It's long so feel free to skip it - just thought it might be fun to share it.

Posadas de las Monjas

Behind the heavy wooden doors of Posadas de las Monjas we found true sanctuary. David and I have been here for 6 days and can’t seem to find a compelling reason to leave. The word posada means a place to rest and rest we have found. The original buildings served as a monastery and the complex is a maze of walkways and small staircases that open into courtyards and lead up to numerous rooftop terraces. The walls are built of mortared stone with small chips of rock set into the joints for decoration. Each building is slightly different; one has arched stone moldings around the windows and others are topped by castle-like turrets. Many of the walls were left with the raw stone standing jagged at the top which adds to the medieval character. Several of the balconies are covered in white and pink plaster and edged in colorful tile.

Flowers and plants everywhere! Huge geraniums spill out of the terra cotta pots lining every wall and walkway. Small pink roses emit an intoxicating perfume, blending with the jasmine and honeysuckle growing in adjacent courtyards. Fledgling doves test their wings on decorative iron railings, chirping swallows swoop down from their perches atop the tile chimneys while tiny hummingbirds dart among the flowers.

This morning, David and I chose an umbrella shaded table on one of the many terraces as our workspace. From this spot the view is dominated by the dome of the Cathedral of the Monks. Rooftop gardens fill the scene as far as the eye can see. At first glance, the amount of color is overwhelming. This city was constructed in layers with several small dwellings built on the rooftops of others – a city above the city if you will – each having its own color scheme; so one building may be a number of colors. Even with the brilliant paint colors, the flowers and plants dominate the palette that is San Miguel. Look one direction and a pale yellow wall surrounds large fruit trees, scarlet bougainvillea and mimosa. On the next rooftop, there is a deep orange wall lined with brilliant yellow sheltering cactus of every imaginable shape and size. Further down, a pale orange wall, outlined in cobalt blue, hosts a hammock and dining set surrounded by flowerpots of every conceivable hue. Pale pink and lavender reside next to mustard yellow and mint green to create a range of colors almost overwhelming to the eye. All of these color combinations may at first sound garish, but they blend together like some Technicolor impressionist painting with a depth impossible to capture with words or photographs.

In contrast, our room is small with a stone exterior and simple white plaster walls. The trappings are not lavish, but its comfortable bed and scarred dark wood furnishings are all that we need. Our windows are screens covered in dark wood shutters with wavy old glass panes. The overhang keeps the rain out, so we kept them open in the middle of a heavy downpour – which lulled us straight to sleep. The heating and air conditioning system consists of heavy blankets for the cool nights and a battered pedestal fan for the warm afternoons. The bathroom is decorated with hand-painted Talavera tile with a dark slate floor. A drain in the floor and a curtain serve as a shower. After the Hiltons and Marriotts of recent weeks this might seem spartan but the simplicity is refreshing.

The people here are very nice, quick with bright smiles and patient with our hesitant Spanish. There is a steady hum of work from early morning until late afternoon as they sweep, clean and tend the plants. We hear a lot of joking and laughing, whistling and singing – there is work to be done, but also a little time for play.

That is the spirit that we have adopted as well.

Every morning we walk a few blocks up the hill up to the main square called El Jardin for fantastic coffee, hard rolls with jam and local butter, and a hearty breakfast at Rincon de Don Tomas. There is free WiFi from a shop on the corner so we browse the news, check email and chat with other patrons. Afterwards, we return to Posada de los Monjas for a few hours of work, then a late lunch and a short siesta. A few more hours of work and then we are free to explore the town. The sun sets about 7:30 these days and the local dinner hour is quite late, so there is a lot of time to see the area, walking for miles and taking hundreds of photographs. Later, we dine at one of the numerous excellent restaurants and sit in El Jardin for some people watching. Wandering back to the hotel around 11 for a last check of email and complete a few last little chores, we wrap up the day. The bars on the street below close down about midnight and after that the city quiets down considerably. However, it really doesn’t matter because with all of the walking we’ve been doing we’re out as soon as we hit the pillow – sleeping deeply at Posadas de las Monjas, dreaming in the bright colors of Mexico.


The hotel was $50/night with wifi in the courtyard some of the terraces and the main lobby. We stayed there for a week and then rented an adorable house for 2 weeks ($750/wk) just to see what that would be like. Some of my photos from SMdA are here and bzbdavid's are here. - we took dozens more but never got around to posting them on flickr.

USAFAN

I agree. Yes, it's pretty ... hilly, nice old houses, but a little dusty and not much to do.
We went there for two nights with a rental car from Mexico City. We had no hotel reservation, so we checked out some hotels. Most of them up the hill. The small hotels we checked did not meet our expectations, too simple or too expensive. San Miguel is OK for a couple of days ... but not for the rest of my life.

bzbdewd

If you need a lot of outside entertainment you probably will not like it. There is plenty to do if you are fairly self sustaining.

shawbridge

We're pretty self-sustaining and don't typically avail ourselves of outside entertainment when we travel. But, we tend to like either heavier outdoor activity or heavier cultural exploration than we came across in SMA. We don't really partake of "nightlife" -- we barely drink and our teenagers are not into clubbing at home or abroad.

On the outdoor side, it was a little hot and dry for a lot of outdoor activity and we didn't hear about great places to hike. We were visiting friends who inherited a house there (in which they spent part of their childhood) and they didn't have any great suggestions. We did rent mountain bikes but my son and I didn't love the biking. I don't golf and we didn't bring tennis gear (I don't recall courts there but I assume they exist). We did walk all around the town and walk out to a park and had fun, but it was just a little sedate for our taste. In contrast, later on last winter, I took the kids to Nicaragua and we did some humanitarian stuff (e.g., feeding kids in the landfill in Managua as part of a feeding program) but we hiked, swam, played soccer, took ferries and sailing boats to harder to reach beaches, etc. It just felt more active.

On the cultural side, maybe what we like is external. We've taken our kids to museums and churches all over Italy in search of great paintings, Buddhist temples in Japan, various temples in Bali, museums in London and Paris, the MOMA and the Met whenever we visit NY, etc. We also didn't see galleries with work that made us really want to look further. But, we bring our own art with us (except for me -- I bring my laptop). My wife is a serious painter (i.e., shows in galleries in various cities, work owned by museums etc.). She photographed for paintings and she did some painting from our rooftop as did our son. We made an excursion to Pozos.

The absolutely best part of the trip was our sidetrip to El Rosario.

If I were going to retire (and I'm hoping not to do so), I think I'd want a place in which outdoor activity other than walking was easier to do. But, I can see why it is an attractive place for people to retire.

david55

We have a house there and love SMA. Visitors who have come to see us for the most part have fallen in love with the place. Some have gone on to buy homes of their own. Those that are seeking an " outdoor adventure" are the most disappointed.

Two days is not enough time to delve into SMA....It is like a small US college town. There is A LOT of culture, music, dance and art.... and numerous events going on everyday. Picking up the local English/Spanish newspaper The Atencion would have given you a true insight to the full gamit of what is available.