Guides · Santa Fe
Santa Fe
73 places · 8 areas · a free route, then $4.99 for the whole city · offline map 2.6 MB
The free route
Free in the app, permanently, before you pay anything. 8 stops, 1 day, about 1.4 km, planned by the app's own engine.
Day 1 · ~1.4 km
1
Scottish Rite Center
A pink 1912 Moorish Revival Masonic temple on Paseo de Peralta, inspired by the Alhambra (exterior, tours booked ahead)
Stand across Paseo de Peralta to take in the pink walls and Moorish outline, as out of place in adobe Santa Fe as a palace from Granada. Compare it with the earth-toned buildings around it.
2
Palace of the Governors
The adobe seat of government from about 1610, held by the Pueblos after 1680, with Native artisans outside
Walk the length of the portal in the morning as the artists lay out their pottery, jewelry and textiles on blankets, and talk with the maker before you buy. Then, if you have a History Museum ticket, go inside for the Palace galleries, the courtyard and the archaeology found beneath the building.
3
Santa Fe Plaza
The Spanish plaza laid out in the early 1600s, where El Camino Real and the Santa Fe Trail ended
Start under the Palace portal on the north side, then cross to the center of the square, where the Soldiers' Monument stood until 2020, and walk the edges: the Palace, La Fonda on the southeast corner, and the old Woolworth building, now the Five & Dime. Come back at sunset when the adobe fronts turn orange.
4
La Fonda on the Plaza
The 1922 Pueblo Revival hotel at the Santa Fe Trail's end, once a Harvey House, with a rooftop bar
Walk through the lobby and the courtyard restaurant, La Plazuela, to see its hundreds of hand-painted glass panes, then head up to the Bell Tower Bar on the roof for a drink as the sun drops behind the western hills.
5
Loretto Chapel
An 1870s Gothic Revival chapel modeled on Paris's Sainte-Chapelle, famous for its spiral staircase of legend
Buy a ticket and go straight to the back of the nave for the staircase: two full turns rising to the choir loft with no central pole. Then look at the Gothic Revival windows and vaulting, rare in a town of adobe.
6
Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi
Archbishop Lamy's Romanesque Revival cathedral, built 1869 to 1887, holding a chapel left from the 1714 adobe church
Look at the front from the head of San Francisco Street: the two square towers stop short where spires were planned, and Hebrew letters are carved in the keystone above the main door. Inside, find the La Conquistadora chapel in the north transept and the small wooden Madonna brought to New Mexico in the 1620s.
7
Sena Plaza
A 19th-century hacienda off Palace Avenue, its rooms around a garden courtyard now shops and offices
Go in from Palace Avenue to the inner courtyard, sit a while in the garden and look at how the one-story adobe rooms and the later second story frame it. Then look for the west range, where the old ballroom was.
8
The Shed
A red chile institution since 1953, in the low adobe rooms of Prince Patio off Palace Avenue
Walk into Prince Patio off Palace Avenue, take a table in one of the small adobe rooms and order something smothered in the house red chile, the dish the family has built its name on.
More of the top sights
A few of the 73 places in the full guide. Each one has its own written guide in the app: what to do, what to notice, the history, and why it hits.
Canyon Road
A narrow old farm road of adobe homes turned into over a hundred galleries, studios and shops
Areas
The Plaza · Palace Avenue and the Cathedral · West Downtown and Johnson Street · Barrio de Analco and the Capitol · Canyon Road and Acequia Madre · Guadalupe and the Railyard · Fort Marcy and the North Side · Museum Hill
Illustrations are drawn for the app. Place descriptions are written by hand and checked against a primary source; facts draw on Wikidata (CC0) and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors.