Attractions:
- Taos Plaza
- Taos Pueblo: a United Nations World Heritage Site and home to Tewa-speaking Indians. I can't imagine coming to the Southwest and not making an effort to see 1,000-year-old multi-storied adobe buildings! After all, adobe reverts to mud when it rains if it's not maintained. Imagine the community effort over the centuries to keep the structures sound.
- Bandelier National Monument
- Picuris Pueblo
- Kit Carson's home: exploring the Old West traditions
- Hacienda de los Martinez,: a Spanish Colonial Hacienda illustrating frontier life in the 1800s. This home was elegant in its day. What modern visitors notice, however, is the fortification of the building. During the 1800s, Comanches and Ute Indians would raid settlements for grain and livestock. The Hacienda has two interior courtyards where neighbors and their livestock would be protected during these raids. The parapet walls provided protection from arrows and gunshots while allowing the occupants to shoot at the raiding party. This is the real thing, not the Hollywood version of the West!
- Millicent Rogers Museum: a wonderful collection of Native American, Spanish Colonial and Hispanic arts and crafts. Everything from 200-year-old altar pieces to modern day hide paintings. The Museum also has the largest collection of Maria Martinez black-on-black pottery. This pueblo artist from San Ildefonso Pueblo was named a Living Legion during L.B.J.'s administration.
- San Francisco de Asis Church,: an all-adobe church with enormous buttresses made famous by Georgia O'Keeffe's painting of the backside under different light of day, much like Monet's studies of the door of Chartes Cathedral. Besides the two primitive altar pieces, referred to as Bultos, this church is a testament to engineering with mud and timber before modern levels and surveying. A mystery painting in the Parish Hall next door is also worth viewing. (We don't want to spoil the mystery by telling you any more about it!)
- Wild Rivers Recreation Area: where the Rio Grande and the Red River converge and the gorge is at its deepest. This is my favorite place on the planet! There's a easy rim trail that makes a loop and several ways to hike to the river. Many of our guests report that they saw only one or two other people while hiking. Taos has great scenic beauty and I know of no other place that wows as much as the Wild Rivers Area.
|
