Ochre walls and a pink church
San Miguel de Allende
A colonial hill town in central Mexico painted in reds, ochres and yellows, around a pink stone church.
Why San Miguel de Allende is burnt ochre
San Miguel de Allende is a town in the highlands of central Mexico, founded in the 16th century and grown rich on the silver road. Its streets are cobbled and its houses turn plain walls to the street, hiding courtyards. Those walls are painted in a narrow, warm range: rust red, burnt orange, ochre and mustard yellow, colours close to the earth pigments used in the past. In the main square stands the parish church. Its front, added in the 1880s by a local mason, Zeferino Gutiérrez, is a mass of pointed spires in pink stone, said to have been inspired by pictures of European Gothic churches. In spring, jacaranda trees add purple. It is a World Heritage Site.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to San Miguel de Allende
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "San Miguel de Allende" on Wikipedia. If you know San Miguel de Allende and we have it wrong, tell us.
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🇲🇽 Walled city of pastel streetsCampecheA fortified port on the Gulf of Mexico with straight streets of low houses in pale, carefully kept colours.
🇲🇽 River port of bold arcadesTlacotalpanA quiet town on the Papaloapan river where every house has a columned porch in a different strong colour.
🇮🇳 City of saffron and lightVaranasiSaffron robes, marigold garlands and oil lamps colour the river steps of one of the oldest living cities.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Varanasi In: Marcin Białek, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Izamal Mx: Inri, CC0, source
- Guanajuato Mx: Nathaniel C. Sheetz, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Oaxaca Mx: Apsu09, CC BY 3.0, source
- Campeche Mx: self., CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Tlacotalpan Mx: panza.rayada, CC BY-SA 3.0, source