Reflections on the ‘best small city in the world’: San Miguel de Allende
A recent “Good Tourism” Insight about ‘jouissance’ prompted me to reappraise the concepts of sensation and perception and the pursuit of pleasure.
It triggered memories of San Miguel de Allende, a magical UNESCO World Heritage-listed colonial town in central Mexico.
The story begins with an artist and one of Canada’s former figure skating champions, the late Toller Cranston.
My wife and I had always wondered why he and so many artists had taken up residence in San Miguel.
The inside track
K Michael Haywood is Professor Emeritus of the School of Hospitality, Food & Tourism at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
In 2012, to escape a frigid winter, we headed south to Mexico from our home in Canada and found ourselves ensconced in what could easily be characterised as a sacred place, a moral environment, a place that led our minds somewhere else.
All our senses were engaged and put at our disposal an outward flow of attention, an awakening to surprise.
Such extreme levels of awareness about our surroundings and their purpose fed a newfound awareness of ourselves, a wonderment, and a fresh connectivity to the people and things around us.
Despite our advanced reading of how special and welcoming San Miguel de Allende was likely to be, we could never have imagined such a cornucopia of visual delight as we strolled through colourfully walled and shaded cobblestone streets to find Toller Cranston’s studio and home.
There we were, so stunned by the sustained and beautiful forces of human and non-human nature that we were led to make a purchase that nobody could have resisted.
But that was just the beginning. The transaction initiated a sense of conviviality.
Toller invited us for cocktails the following evening, and launched into an explanation as to how he had been seduced by the town and the region, its quiescence providing a refuge that concentrated his creative urges.
How the town’s expressive energies led to a sense of belonging to the location of his longing. Energies, as he pointed out, that condition all peoples’ vitality and inner selves.
Energies that affect their intellectual, psychological, and spiritual well-being, dramatising the power of places to move the soul.
Energies that foster the capacity for interaction and engagement with others, that give the place an identity, and that shape its unique reality.
It’s true. At the root of a San Miguel experience lies a purity of expression, the vibrations of a phenomenon, a quiet excitement that gathers sensual responses into a web of connected meaning and expressive imaginations.
Needless to say, over the remaining course of our stay, my wife and I remained transfixed by the place.
We spoke incessantly about San Miguel’s architectural charm and floral beauty; the vibrancy of its colors and sounds; its quintessential Mexican character and exuberant social life that spilled out onto streets, into markets, and verdant parks.
(Centro and El Jardin are the established foci for communal socialising. Locals and visitors alike love to mingle and relax there.)
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We felt ever-present and part of a vernacular that grew out of the practical needs of San Miguel’s residents; a vernacular shaped, fortunately, by slow development and many forces: Nature and climate; culture and history; traditions and religion; building design and materials; the arts and crafts; and, of course, tourism.
Change is inevitable, but tourism in San Miguel thrives on its historic past.
We became aware of how the decisions of San Miguel’s municipal government, influenced by UNESCO’s guidelines, were made in response to both immediate issues and long-range policy visions. They were responsibilities that seemed to be taken seriously.
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No wonder then that the town has become a habitual choice for holidaymakers; and a new or second home for many American and Canadian expatriates … and Mexicans.
Travellers certainly enjoy San Miguel de Allende as evidenced by the readers of Conde Nast Traveller anointing it the “Best Small City in the World”.
Such a declaration is hard to argue with.
Indeed, my wife and I have returned six times since that first visit.
(This “GT” Travel Experience is exemplified and expanded upon in my “Good Tourism” Insight about the travel & tourism industry in The “Good Tourism” Blog. [Use the same sign in details for “GT” that you use for “GT” Travel.])
Where is this?
San Miguel de Allende is the principal city in the municipality of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico.
The coordinates used for the pin that represents this “GT” Travel Experience (on the “GT” Travel map below) point to Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, the neo-Gothic church overlooking El Jardin in the centre of San Miguel de Allende. It’s a landmark that one cannot miss due to its pink spires.
Toller Cranston passed away in January 2015. His studio and home is no longer a place one can visit.
Featured image (top of post): Overlooking San Miguel de Allende and its pink Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel. By Steven Buchanan (CC0) via Pixabay.
