Tag Archives: tourism

San Miguel de Allende

Festival of the Arts San Miguel de Allende starts Friday — let the feast begin!

Eduardo Adame’s gigantic sprawling, eclectic, cultural “potluck party” is about to begin. 

A “potluck” is how Adame described the third edition of the two-week-long Festival of the Arts San Miguel de Allende (FASMA) in May, when he was pulling together global and homegrown artists, musicians, singers, actors, poets, photographers, craftsmen, and the like for the showcase.

“Everyone is invited to bring the best that they can do – and invite their friends,” he said back then, expanding on the analogy

Continue reading →
Standard
Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende

Our Locos dance to a different beat … lots of different beats

Well, all those umbrellas did not go to waste. The ones people carried to the Locos parade and the ones sold by vendors under threatening skies.

The rains stayed away and thousands of gaily costumed — and bizarrely, quaintly, curiously, delightfully, enchantingly, dreamily, whimsically, scarily, creepily, amusingly and shockingly costumed — paraders strutted, danced, boogied, jumped and jived their way down the Ancha, en route to the Jardin Allende in the civic square.

Continue reading →
Standard
San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

FASMA2025 is more than a festival; it is a feast served up by local arts and culture groups

Read the latest on FASMA 2025 here.

The third edition of the San Miguel de Allende Festival of the Arts (FASMA2025) is coming in August and will offer more than 100 events from scores of local arts and culture organizations.  Music, theater, opera, film, dance, literary and plastic arts programs will be presented in many of San Miguel’s finest venues, Aug. 1-17.

Individually, these are the kinds of events for which this city is famous around the world.

Collectively, this is an opportunity for San Miguelians to sample the many lively, beautiful, and inspiring performance programs that make up the fabric of this community.

Continue reading →
Standard
photography, San Miguel de Allende

In San Miguel, a day of dance for El Señor de la Conquista

In front of the Parroquia de San Miguel Arc Angel — all day Friday for the feast day of Señor de La Conquista — hundreds of brightly costumed dancers express the most joyous form of worship imaginable.

And exhausting.

Long before noon, it was hot out there. Really hot. I’ve never seen headdresses come off so quickly and water get consumed so rapidly as today. Can you blame them?

But always there were smiles.

So, what’s this all about?

Continue reading →
Standard
photography, San Miguel de Allende

Scentless: Flowers that will last forever

“Bob,” many of you ask me, “are the flowers in San Miguel really that beautiful? And are there really that many?”

I try to manage expectations.

“Yes,” I say. “There are that many flowers. And, yes, they are that beautiful.”

Continue reading →
Standard
Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Monarch butterflies migrate on a wing and a prayer, but for how much longer … and does it matter?

Monica Maeckle is a glass-half-full kind of gal. 

How else to take her pronouncement about the Monarch butterfly on Tuesday night, that their ”migration is endangered, but the butterfly is not”?

It feels a little like saying “The Louvre Museum is burning to the ground, but we’ll still have great digital pictures of all the art.”

Frankly, I don’t know quite how I felt after Maeckle spoke as part of the i3 (ideas that inform & inspire) lecture series.

Continue reading →
Standard
San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

Go ‘Figero’: A night at the opera that’s right on the Marx (Harpo, Chico, Groucho …)

There is a comedy – a musical sitcom – about a powerful man who believes he has the right to do whatever he wants to women. 

It’s a sequel, in fact, that gives off a sort of a bro-boy’s “Your body, my choice” vibe.

But the women in this comedy are smart and savvy, with a sort of a “Me too” vibe. They know how to stand up to power in clever ways. They know how to work the angles on the patriarchy.

And, no, it is not called “Trump’s Second Term.”

The musical is actually an opera and it was written in 1786. A huge hit in its day. Now, it is considered one of the greatest operas of all time. 

Apparently, things haven’t changed all that much in the last 239 years.

The opera is Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Continue reading →
Standard
Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende

Life on the ledge

Everybody is experiencing varying degrees of winter, some harsher than others this year. In northern climes there is a touch of schadenfreude in the air as southern spots like New Orleans try to figure out how to move snow off their streets and sidewalks and in Washington DC, the presidential inauguration was moved inside because it was too cold.

Right now I’m sitting in front of a fireplace shivering but in another hour or so I’ll be down to shorts and T-shirt. That’s just the way winter goes in San Miguel de Allende. Temperatures sink and soar on a whim.

In another week we’ll begin the celebration of Candelaria, which sort of pushes Spring to the forefront. The celebration is part religious and part commercial. Candelaria marks Candlemas, the 40th day after the birth of Christ.

Continue reading →
Standard
Rants and raves, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende

Dominic Cheli in concert: Stop me if you’ve heard this one (I guarantee you have not)

A classical pianist walks into eight bars …

If you think there is a punchline,  the chaconne is on you.

Actually, it was the “Chaconne in G minor” by Thomaso Antonio Vitali and the pianist was Dominic Cheli in his return performance after two years away to San Miguel de Allende on Friday night at St. Paul’s Church.

Continue reading →
Standard
Colonia San Antonio, San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA, Writings

Talk of the town: Lecturers, speakers, teachers, and authors all want a word with you

Update: Change of venue for San Miguel PEN Presents! Talks and times are the same, only the location has changed: Nectar at Camino Silvestre, Correo #43, Centro.

Talk is not cheap but it sure is plentiful in San Miguel de Allende during the first couple of months of 2025.

Intelligent, knowledgeable and often-times brilliant speakers will be stepping before podiums all over the city to offer enlightenment on topics like explaining the last U.S. election, explaining the current Mexico president, explaining the media, poetry, Artificial Intelligence, outer space, talking about their latest novels, the history of San Miguel, and so much more.

If you are looking for a modern-day Chautauqua Movement, look no further than San Miguel.

Continue reading →
Standard