Things to do
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El Charco del Ingenio
Sixty odd hectares of botanical garden and nature reserve on the canyon rim above the town, given over to the cacti and succulents of the Mexican highlands, with a reservoir, a dam and a conservatory built as a greenhouse of columns. Trails run along the canyon edge and down to the water. Walk up from the centre in about half an hour, and go early: shade is scarce.
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Fábrica La Aurora
A textile mill that spun cotton from the early twentieth century until the nineties now holds studios, galleries and design shops under its sawtooth roof, with the old machinery left standing between them. Painters and furniture makers work with the doors open. A short walk or a cheap taxi north of the centre; the café in the yard is where the morning goes. Most studios close on Sundays.
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Instituto Allende
Founded as an art school in the nineteen fifties inside a former hacienda and convent complex, the institute drew American veterans studying on the GI Bill, which is how the town became an expatriate colony. Courses in painting, printmaking and Spanish still run, and the arcaded courtyard, a chapel and a small gallery are open to walk through. The garden terraces look across the rooftops to the parish church.
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Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel
Pink stone spires rise over the Jardín Principal in a Gothic idiom unusual in Mexico, drawn in the late nineteenth century by Zeferino Gutiérrez, a local mason said to have worked from engravings of European cathedrals. The church behind the front is older and much plainer. Floodlights come on after dusk, when the benches in the square below fill and the bells carry.
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Sanctuary of Atotonilco
Every surface of the nave and side chapels is painted, floor to vault, in an eighteenth-century folk Baroque that earned the church its place on the World Heritage list alongside the town. Pilgrims still come for retreats, and the village around it sells little else. A taxi or the local bus covers the fifteen kilometres from San Miguel in about twenty minutes. Silence is expected inside, and the light is best mid-morning.