Taxco

This weekend's trip took us about three hours to the south of Mexico City, to the "preserved" colonial city of Taxco. ("Preserved" in quotations because it has grown, but government enforcement requires any new building to be constructed in style of the older structures there. Even the taxi fleet of Volkswagen beetles have been painted entirely white to match the buildings.) It is a beautiful city, with thin and winding streets twisting their way through the hills. In this picture, you can see the hillside covered in houses, and if you click on the picture to magnify it you may be able to make out the open-armed Jesus statue on the hill in the upper right corner:


Taxco was once a silver boom town, but since the veins have tapped out, the town has re-created itself as a center for silver design. Lots of what you get in other countries as "Mexican silver" was worked in Taxco, and there are hundreds of shops and galleries. But you don't get to see those, you get to see part this eighteenth century church: