Author: Ed Hovorka

On Monday we went to León. León is a fairly large city with about 1.5 million people.  If we had a car it would probably take 50 minutes to drive there. I think it took about 1:15-1:30 because we had to change buses at the central Guanajuato bus station on the edge of town.

What’s there to do in León you ask? Why, eat a Blizzard at Dairy Queen.

This is one of the seven DQs in León.  It is located in the Plaza Principal, the historic center of the city. It was hard to get a good picture of the plaza. It was nice, lots of trees, lots of benches.

 

As we walked away from the centro, we passed Templo Expiatorio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, which is not as old as it looks. Built from 1921-2013.

Continuing East we saw the Arco Triunfal De León, which is at one end of a nice boulevard park.

From a pedestrian bridge looking back at the arch and church.

 

The other reason to go to León is Mr. Pampas. Mr. Pampas is a Brazilian buffet restaurant. We ate at something like this in Lisbon. They have a salad bar with more than just salad (multiple green salads, noodle salads, pasta, beans, potatoes, rice, chicken and pork dishes, pizza and more), and a desert bar. The waiters come to your table with large skewers of various grilled meats, which they then slice some off onto your plate. It was delicious. High quality meats and the salad bar was continually refreshed. It was a little pricey by Mexican standards (average by US standards), but totally worth it. I didn’t take any pictures because I was too busy eating.  For pictures, here’s the link to their site:  Mr. Pampas

 

We went out at night for some ice cream. There are no pictures of me with my cone because I ate it too fast.

One of the many tunnel entrances.

By the university.

In the center of the city is the Parroquia de Basílica Colegiata de Nuestra Señora de Guanajuato, built in the 17th century. (Day and night shots)

 

El Pípila is the nickname of a Mexican hero from the War of Independence. There is a big statue on a high hill with great views of Guanajuato. On the home page of this website is our picture taken there from 2018. Yesterday we walked up the hill and we are just now catching our breath.

These are the stairs we took down. We went up by a more zigzag path. We are probably a third of the way down in this picture.

 

 

Guanajuato has a maze of tunnels under the city’s center for car and bus traffic. The tunnels were originally constructed to allow water to drain during the rainy season, and were eventually widened and converted into roads.  The tunnels are well lit and have sidewalks for pedestrians. Some open up and are not all dark and scary.  (Some are long, dark and scary, meant for cars only). Yesterday we walked through a few.

There are stairs down in many places, mostly near the underground bus stops.

There’s even art down below.

Our apartment has a mural on one wall and we found the location that was used as inspiration.

 

 

On Sunday we went to the Presa neighborhood for Sunday Brunch. It’s far enough away that we took one of the city buses to get there. In most cities we’ve been to, the buses have numbers and the bus stops have signs indicating routes. Guanajuato has bus stops with shelters and benches, like normal cities. But there are no route maps or route numbers to be found, online or printed anywhere. Each bus has its stops written on the front windshield. So how do you know which bus stop to stand at to catch the bus you want? Luckily it’s like being on an island, so you can’t really get lost. We’re in a valley surrounded by even higher mountain peaks. Most buses seem to have a circular route, and there are many one way streets. By looking at a map and making an educated guess, we managed to get on the right bus on the first try.

There’s a nice park in the neighborhood.