Santa Fe Stay-cation

January 6th, 2012

For our 29th anniversary, Dec 18th, with Christmas rapidly approaching and too much to do to celebrate out of town, Bill and I decided on a Santa Fe stay-cation. I had recently toured the Inn of the Five Graces, with Sylvia Seret whose son owns the Inn and I fell in love with the beautiful Indian and Afghani textile upholstered furniture and bedding that Sylvia and her husband used to decorate the East meets Southwest living spaces. And the tiled mosaic bathrooms that Sylvia designed are incredibly detailed works of art. The entire Inn is so lush and sumptuous that I knew this would be a special place to celebrate. Their showroom/store Seret and Sons down the street is a visual feast of wonders collected from countries along the Silk Road.
Dinner our first night at Brian Knox’s Aqua Santa – my favorite restaurant in Santa Fe – was delicious as usual (I always have the caesar salad and the shredded lamb with braised greens and crispy shallots – so so good). We slept beautifully under our Afghani bedspread and blankets and were ready to be tourists in our own town.

Our first stop was the San Miguel Chapel directly across from the Inn. It is claimed to be the oldest church in the United States as there is evidence that the site has been occupied by humans since 1300AD. The Tlaxcala Indians from Mexico who came to New Mexico with Spanish settlers built the original chapel in 1610. The well-preserved Church enchanted me especially when I read that spirits of Indians are still felt there and that some visitors experience spiritual activity. There is a sign that asks visitors not to be afraid, as the chapel spirits are friendly. Love that!

A block away from the San Miguel Chapel is the Loretto Chapel built as a school by Bishop Lamy for the sisters of Loretto and famous for the spiral staircase that was built by a mysterious, traveling carpenter. The construction of the staircase has baffled engineers and to date no one has ever figured out how this feat of engineering was accomplished. With the two 360 degree turns and no visible means of support, it is truly a miraculous staircase and worth a visit. The rosary garden in front of the chapel was sweet.

After a few hours of Christmas shopping at some of our favorite stores by the Plaza; Doodlets – a store filled with cool and kitschy toys, lights, cards, folk art and so much more (great for stocking stuffers – we always buy Beeman’s clove and black jack gum; Spirit clothing store, where I find great sweaters and trousers; and my friend Eva Jackson’s store Sign of the Pampered Maiden for easy affordable clothes, we were hungry. We decided to see if we could get into Café Pasqual’s – a favorite restaurant of both tourists and locals. The food is a fusion of Central American and New Mexican flavors. The décor is festive with lights, chili ristras, Diego Rivera type art and a lot of other things thrown in. I had a grilled free-range chicken breast sandwich with manchego cheese, caramelized onions on toasted chile-cornbread with a kale salad and loved it! Pasqual’s is a colorful restaurant with colorful food and colorful characters. We ran into an old friend, solar design architect Mark Chalom in his colorful sweatshirt designed by his wife, Betty of Tewa Tees. What better place than Santa Fe to be a tourist and a local?

We ended our stay-cation with dinner at Bistro 315 with another delicious meal and went back to our cozy room and watched the snow start to fall on the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Our little get-a-way, a week before Christmas settled our nerves, expanded our awareness of our town and renewed the deep love we have for each other. There is so much more to see and experience in our hometown that we decided to treat ourselves to a stay-cation more often.