In this tastefully designed and laid out museum/gallery works a gentle and polite man who most visitors overlook as they study or breeze past the artwork. Morelia is one of Mexico’s ‘best kept historic secrets’ despite its UNESCO Heritage status.Īnother monastery was converted into the state artisan gallery where arts and crafts from all the localities in the state of Michoacan display and sell their ceramics, wood carvings, furniture, jewelry, paintings, jewelry, weavings, dolls and more. Another former convent is now home to one of the oldest music schools in North America with a renowned boys’ choir.Ī noticeable attraction in this city is the lack of ‘gringo’ tourists, white faces from the USA or Europe are mostly absent so the city feels authentic.
#Mexico city gay bar sex gay porn windows
With wooden bookcases thick with new and ancient volumes rising three levels toward the high arched ceiling of the nave, large glass windows at either end and heavy oak reading tables spread across the floor, the richly studious ambiance is equal to any library at Oxford or Cambridge.
One of the most impressive conversions is the municipal library housed in a former Jesuit monastery (photo left). Since then, many of these iglesias have been turned into municipal buildings such as art galleries, offices and libraries although some of the magnificent structures still remain churches in this very catholic country. That is, until the revolution at the turn of the 20th century when the Mexican government confiscated all church properties. Over the centuries many churches were built by the Roman Catholic missionaries and bishops who ran their dioceses like feudal lords. We ate at a café that sported blue walls, yellow tablecloths, deep red floors and walls with brightly colored paintings. What’s also striking are the primary colors that decorate the interiors of many places. Inside the many courtyards are antique bazaars, boutique clothing stores, hardware stores, art galleries, restaurants, cafes, gift shops. Former villas and mansions front the streets with balconied windows trimmed with carved sandstone casings. Arcaded markets line the parks and squares. The city seems to emerge from the earth dust-colored cantera stone has been shaped into churches capped with old bronze-bell towers. On my first day he guided me into the heart of the city (of about 2 million) and immediately my heart was taken with the soul of this weathered old place. I had never heard of Morelia Mexico before I arrived to visit a longtime friend who bought a house just outside the historic city center.
This is an unexpected story from an unexpected place.
Gay Mexico News & Reports 2000 to present Part three is from the renown resort of Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula, with a LGBT community that’s quite different than one might expect. Part two derives from the big city itself–Mexico City, an enormous megopolis of twenty million where, expectantly, the LGBT scene is extensive and challenging. Part one reveals a subdued LGBT community in the provincial capital of Morelia in the state of Michoacan, a hundred miles west of Mexico City. From three Mexican cities come three different stories about gay life.