Ask someone who has been to Guanajuato what it looks like and they will pause for a second before answering. Not because they don't remember — because they're trying to describe something that resists being described quickly. The houses go up the hillside in layers, painted in ochre and magenta and blue and green, stacked so tightly and so colorfully that the whole city looks like it was assembled by someone who didn't believe in following a grid. It's called the most beautiful colonial city in Mexico by people who have seen all of them. The guanajuatense nods at this with the quiet confidence of someone who already knew.
A UNESCO City With a Callejón and a Legend
Guanajuato city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site — its underground road system, the historic aqueduct, the preserved colonial architecture, the sheer density of plazas and churches in an impossibly small footprint. The city is built into a narrow valley and climbed the sides of it over centuries, and the result is a place where the streets are alleys and the alleys are callejones and one of those callejones is famous.
The Callejón del Beso — the Alley of the Kiss — is maybe four feet wide at its narrowest point, where two colonial balconies nearly touch across the gap. The legend goes that two families in love with each other forbade their children from being together, so the young couple would lean across from their opposing balconies to steal a kiss. Whether it happened or not, every couple who visits Guanajuato kisses on the third step of that callejón, because the legend says if you don't, you'll have seven years of bad luck. The guanajuatense has heard this story so many times she can tell it in her sleep, and she's still glad it exists.
Festival Cervantes and the Cultural Identity of the City
Every October, Guanajuato hosts the Festival Internacional Cervantes — one of the most important cultural festivals in Latin America. Named for Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, who set parts of his work in a fictional version of what became this region, the festival draws theater companies, musicians, dancers, and scholars from around the world. It has been running since 1972 and the guanajuatense is not casual about it. This is their Festival. The whole city changes during those two weeks.
The cultural reputation of Guanajuato is serious. This is a university city — the Universidad de Guanajuato has been there since the 18th century — and the arts culture runs deep. The guanajuatense carries this. She is educated, proud of her city's intellectual life, and correctly skeptical of any account of Mexican culture that reduces it to the obvious.
The Mummies, the Strawberries, and the Shoes
Three things that the guanajuatense will eventually mention, in no particular order:
The Mummies of Guanajuato. In the 19th century, when a tax was levied on cemetery plots in Guanajuato, many families couldn't afford to keep paying and their loved ones were exhumed. The mineral composition of the local soil had naturally mummified the bodies — expressions intact, postures preserved — and rather than re-bury them, the city put them in a museum. It is one of the strangest, most visited cultural sites in Mexico. The guanajuatense has a complicated relationship with this: the mummies are unsettling and also completely hers. Guanajuato things.
The fresas. Guanajuato is the strawberry capital of Mexico. The state produces a significant portion of the country's strawberries, and anyone from Irapuato — the fresa capital within the capital — knows what it is to eat them fresh at the market and understand that nothing sold elsewhere in the world is the same. This is not pride, exactly. It is just accurate.
León. Mexico's shoe capital. The city of León in Guanajuato produces a significant portion of Mexico's leather goods and footwear, and the guanajuatense from León will always, at some point, look at your shoes and know things about them.
Guanajuato Gifts for the Guanajuatense in Your Life
The Guanajuato T-Shirt from Smile Mas is for the guanajuatense who doesn't need the city explained — she is the explanation. For the one who has the Festival Cervantes dates memorized years in advance. For the primo who grew up in León and has opinions about every pair of shoes you've ever owned. For the tía who wants to eat fresas in Irapuato every season and considers this a reasonable life goal.
Browse the Mexican State Pride collection → for all the estados in the family. And if you're looking for another colonial city with a long memory, see also: Zacatecas → and San Luis Potosí →.
Encuéntralo en la tienda
Guanajuato T-Shirt
Shop Smile Mas →Keep reading: Zacatecas Gifts: For the Zacatecano Who Carries Their Home With Them · Nayarit Gifts: For the Nayarita Who Carries Their Home With Them · Nuevo León Gifts: For the Regio Who Carries Their Home With Them