Getting off the old-fashioned plane, going down the ladder, is in Chihuahua a privilege that lets us enjoy the landscape from the first moment, the bright sun resting on a transparent sky welcomes us sheltered by the golden mountain range and shows us its new and modern face.
It is Chihuahua, there is no doubt, because of the light and the hospitable reception. And so this endearing city appears again before our eyes, which is preening year after year and shows us its best clothes. The Cerro del Coronel is still there, adorned by antennas in search of signs that blur its old profile. We are already in the city crossed by fast roads that take you from here to there in a jiffy. Our host shows us off and asks us if we want to see what has changed.
The door of the sun
It just starts up again and says, do you want to see the door? The Puerta del Sol, wide, open as big as the hospitality of the Chihuahuas. There is the one that Sebastián conceived "for a semi-arid landscape, for a culture of the sun ..." and we move on. From the periphery we can see new buildings, giant sideboards that give the city a new air that already wants to be cosmopolitan. Octavio tells us something about the new University Study and the recently inaugurated baseball park.
The Angel Square
After a short break, Patricia Martínez, an enthusiastic law student and tourist promoter, comes to look for us, whose commission was to show us the square that houses the administrative buildings of the city, Chihuahuenses already enjoy a renovated square in which modern sculptures appear and the very well done equestrian statue of a Francisco Villa entering combat breaking the air followed by his warriors. We were struck by a viewpoint that someone redesigned from the structures of an abandoned building so that people would have a space to look out over the square where the Government Palace and the old Federal Palace sit proudly, both marked neoclassical style, built in pink quarry.
Octavio, our first host, had already asked us if we wanted to see and visit the houses. Which houses? We asked, associating his phrase with the Forty Houses of the mountains, but no, he was talking about the Requena House, also known as Quinta Gameros, the Round House and the Chihuahua House.
Chihuahua House
Patricia first took us to this house, which was the old Federal Palace that also housed a pretentious Central Post Office. We were surprised by the floors that could well be Italian mosaic and the masterfully built dome to keep patio and hallways in daylight. The rooms are very well set up and designed with great imagination to attract the public, especially the young people. An interactive museum like few others in Mexico, which shows in an agile way the natural face of the state.
We finished this interesting tour in front of what was the cell where the hero of independence, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, spent his last days.
The other building was waiting for us, the Government Palace. Its interior patio captivated us by the beautiful arches and the rudeness of the staircase that leads to the enclosure of the old Chamber of Deputies.
The Round House
Time was pressing so we left the governors' square to go in search of the Casa Redonda, an old railway engine hospital that now houses the Museum of Modern Art, the permanent exhibition shows photographs, objects and documents of the railway so as not to forget what was the steam engine, the coal bunker, the cars and platforms without missing the express, the passenger car and the caboose.
The Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas
We could not fail to mention in this brief chronicle the visit to the cathedral and its exceptional façade with its twin towers, famous for the mention that Graciela Olmos makes of them in the corrido entitled "El Siete Leguas". At the back of the Cathedral you can visit the gallery that keeps works of sacred art from the colonial period.
Then we went to the Paseo Simón Bolívar to finish with our mouths open, after seeing the group of houses, a sample of a boom time built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
When they invited us to visit the entity, they warned us that it was a question of knowing the new face of the Chihuahuan capital, indeed it was, we were faced with many surprises, but above all knowing that the modernity present in the urban landscape has not taken from the city its old charisma or the grace that gives its streets and avenues, the human dimension.
Restaurants
Similarly, the northern city has about 40 restaurants with bar service and in many of them live music is included. Of course, in most of them you can enjoy dishes of northern food that is more tasty and varied than you imagine, but what we are sure of is that supreme quality cuts of meat are offered, you can take advantage of it to Try the northern caldillo, the puchero, chile con queso, menudo norteño, machaca, burritos, flour tortillas, sweets and above all, apple pie, which has no equal.
Lodging
Even when the presence of tourists coming from the neighboring country is growing, you can stay comfortably, since the city has 40 hotels above quality standards; In most of them, restaurant bar services go beyond formality and it is a guarantee to eat and taste in them.
The sotol
You cannot visit Chihuahua without tasting this authentic agave mezcal from the Chihuahuan desert that in a new presentation and double distillation, does not ask for anything from tequila, for something it is having great acceptance today in the North American market.
