We arrived at the second largest city in Mexico, with around 5 million people, in the early afternoon. It was a nice drive from Tequila and we knew we were in a bigger city by the amount of traffic. We managed to work our way into the central area where we were looking to park in a pay parking lot for the night. When we arrived at the suggested location, the attendant said it was full and we could not park there. We looked for some other suggestions on iOverlander, and after almost taking out a power line, we found a nice spot on one of the side streets that looked to be a good place. It was next to a culinary school and amongst a bunch of early to mid 20th century mansions. Two blocks west of us is a very busy avenue with tons of restaurants, bars, and little vendors in the walkway in the median.
To be sure we were legal to park here I looked up the local parking signs and found an app that they use here to pay for parking. I downloaded it, logged in, and paid for 18 hours of parking, which got us to about noon the following day. The cost was $305 pesos. We ended up staying two nights at this spot and I paid for a day and then for another night. The total cost was about $35 USD. The first morning we found a parking guy going around and scanning license plates, so I am glad I paid for the spot.
We got lucky with this spot, apparently, as it is in a great neighborhood called Americana, which was developed as the first subdivision outside of Guadalajara in the early 1900’s. It was designed for the affluent, and the mansions around here are pretty neat looking, especially when lit up at night. The street adjacent to our parking spot is divided with a median and both sides have wide sidewalks and beautiful shade trees. The street comes alive in the evenings with the lights and the numerous cafes that are intermingled with the houses. For some reason I did not take any photos of this, which surprised me. Oh well.
Kathy and I decided after walking the dogs the next morning to have brunch at one of the local cafes and we picked this really cool place called Membrillo Cocina. They had an extensive menu from pizzas to steaks to omelets. I ordered an omelet with chicken, spinach, cheese, and some sort of sauce. It ended up being truly amazing. Kathy’s pizza took a while to get there, and was a bit doughy, but we reheated it for dinner and it was much better then.
We walked the pups again, and then headed the 1.5 miles into the center of town to visit the grand cathedral. Along the way we walked through what is the university of Guadalajara, a collection of buildings inter strewn in the busy city. The Library is a huge stone building that is dwarfed by the high rises around it. We also passed a very large church and took a look inside. Apparently there are over 500 churches in this city.
We climbed up on the fountain steps and got a great picture of the cathedral. The church, called Parroquia El Expiatorio Eucarístico, was begin in 1897 and took about 75 years to complete. They have 125th year clebration plaques in the courtyard with photos of the long build process. It was very gothic looking with open stone structures just as they would have done them in the 17th century.
We continued through the streets and eventually made it to the Cathedral in the center of Guadalajara. The buildings around this square are beautiful as is the cathedral. THe original site was built in 1517, and over the years with fires and earthquakes, the present cathedral results. It is a minor basilica in the Catholic church and the seat of the archbishop of Guadalajara. We toured the inside of the church, which is beautiful.
We spent the next several hours walking through the streets and markets and enjoying the amazing weather. We ended up poking our heads and touring 5 churches in the area we walked. The pups were glad when we arrived back and we took them for another walk around the Americano neighborhood. We made some margaritas (after it took me an hour to find the orange liqour) and talked to some friends on the phone before making pizza and retiring for the evening.
I have to find a water point tomorrow and a place to stay in our next stop, Guanajuato. It is supposed to be 4-5 hours drive, so it may take us a couple of days to get there.
Here are some additional photos of Guadalajara.
