Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Albuquerque Old Town

Another beautiful, sunny, warm day to go sightseeing. We set off for Old Town Albuquerque which was established in 1706.


The charming, old buildings surround a welcoming park with a bandstand in the center and lots of benches to rest weary feet in the shade.


Across the street, is the oldest church in New Mexico, founded in 1706. It is truly striking with the pure white spires against the brilliant blue sky.


Our next stop was one that Doug had been anticipating all day. The Rattlesnake Museum. As you can tell from the picture, I wasn't quite as thrilled about the visit as he was. We wandered through the gift shop and then into the museum in the back. There were a large variety of snakes indigenous to the southwest as well as a few from other parts of the world.


Doug took pictures of every snake and the description, just in case he ever sees one in the wild. And, I surprised myself by being relatively ok with the displays.


That is, until we came across this one that was struggling to escape it's confines. For some reason, this snake totally freaked me out! It was extremely large and fat with it's hideous tongue poking out constantly as it climbed the glass wall and attempted to push it's head through the covering on the top. I foresee some nightmares in my future.

After the long visit with the snakes, we spent some more time wandering around the plaza.


There were a few side streets with interesting shops and cafes.


As well as vendors that had set up in the shade of an original home from the 1700's that has now been converted into a restaurant.

All in all, it was a fun day. We learned some new things, saw interesting sights and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

No comments: