Wednesday the 4th: Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is a wonderful place, making New Mexico one of our top visits. While there, we visited several places, including the excellent Museum of International Folk Art. The permanent collection is amazing...it's packed with the coolest and quirkiest toys, dolls, masks, figures and objects of all sorts. The only downside is that they do not allow any photographs and we respected that, but we could have had some awesome images to share!

We also saw a few of the key landmarks in town: Saint Francis Cathedral and Loretto Chapel. The Chapel's claim to fame is its spiral staircase that was built with no support. It's near perfect.

Of course we spent plenty of time in the Plaza, walking around the various stores and galleries. Stumbled upon some great photography at Verve gallery and looked at some Edward S. Curtis prints. In the end, we saved our money for an incredible dinner at Cafe Pasqual's.

Below is an image from part of the Museum of Indian Art and Culture, a museum right next to the Folk Art Museum. (Note the state symbol of New Mexico created with white rocks in the entry).

Below is a sculpture in the courtyard between the museums. This part of town is called Museum Hill. Two other major museums are within a stones throw of these (one including Navajo Textiles that we regrettably missed...although it gives us a reason to return one day!)

Back in town, we stopped to see the fabled staircase in the Loretto Chapel. We had to fork over a few bucks to see the stairs. It was worth it, I guess, but it was weird to see the door to a church with a Visa and MasterCard sticker on it.

A much cheaper experience, free, was taking a look at the wooden statue of La Conquistadora in the Saint Francis Cathedral. It was brought to Santa Fe in 1626 by a Franciscan priest.

A small atrium just a few blocks from the Plaza in town. This stuff, along with jewelry, was abundant.

Final stop was Cafe Pasqual's for dinner (see picture below). The chef was nominated for the James Beard Award in 1999. We weren't sure if the food would still be good 7 years later but it definitely lived up to the credentials. We actually stopped by for a late dinner the night before when we got to town but they were all booked up...ate Italian instead which was pretty good.

If you're curious what we ate at Cafe Pasqual's...

Started with two appetizers: grilled banana and Moroccan eggplant with cilantro, ginger and garlic. The main entrees were Thai green curry tofu with jasmine rice and roasted veggies and escolar (white fish) with fire roasted tomatoes, vegetables and a heap of garlic fries. For dessert we had a stellar cantaloupe sorbet with mint that was so fresh and sweet it tasted like we were eating the fruit from the rind.

Saint Francis Cathedral after sunset on a long touristy day (almost a full moon too!).