Discover Tlaquepaque: Guadalajara’s Magical Artisan Town

San Pedro Tlaquepaque, which means “Sobre las Lomas de Barro” (“On the Muddy Hills”), is a Pueblo Mágico (Magical Town) located 15 minutes away from the city of Guadalajara. Its pottery tradition with clay and bronze sculptures has been the seedbed of great artisan masters. That is not all, it is also considered the mecca of the mariachi and a town of calm streets that invite you to spend more than one night in its boutique hotels and picturesque colonial houses.

 

It is easy to answer the question: what to do in Tlaquepaque? No one can resist the temptation to explore its cobblestone walkway Independencia: el color de las fachadas (the color of the facades), the smell of the orange trees and the rustic atmosphere, confirm that this is indeed a Pueblo Mágico.

 

More than 200 artisan workshops and art galleries are concentrated here. It is enough to enter a place to marvel at the techniques that the artists dominate; you can see them molding clay, painting ceramics with a brush, carving wood or creating jars in wax.

 

To make intelligent purchases of crafts there are guided tours like those of GDL Tours, where you visit the gallery of Sergio Bustamante, who has distinguished himself by his sculptures with smiling and circular faces.

 

Tlaquepaque is distinguished for being an inclusive destination, since el Centro Cultural El Refugio (El Refugio Cultural Center) organizes walks for blind or visually impaired people, so no one misses the opportunity to get to know this Pueblo Mágico.

 

On the same Independencia walkway you can reach el Museo Regional de la Cerámica de Tlaquepaque (Regional Museum of Ceramics of Tlaquepaque), inside a 17th century house with courtyards decorated with ash trees. A few steps away you can reach the Hidalgo Garden, the heart of Tlaquepaque and a good place to rest after a long walk.

 

After recovering your strength with a snow cone, you can continue to the Museo del Premio Nacional de la Cerámica Pantaléon Panduro (Panduro Pottery National Prize Museum) on Calle Prisciliano Sánchez. The name already says what its collection is about, since it exhibits seven categories of ceramics that have been awarded for more than 39 years: contemporary ceramics, lead-free glazed pottery, traditional ceramics, ceramic sculpture, miniature ceramics, Christmas ceramics and clay figures.

 

Whoever goes to Tlaquepaque and doesn't visit El Parián, on Calle Juárez, means they have lost one of the most emblematic sites of the place. It is an old construction with 19 restaurants-canteens for eating a good pozole, birria, mole or chiles en nogada, no matter if it is in season or not.

 

Finally, it is necessary to visit el santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad (Our Lady de la Soledad Sanctuary) and la Parroquia de San Pedro (San Pedro Parish Church). Its facades are an amalgam of styles, from the Neoclassical, through the Byzantine and Roman, to the Baroque. With authorization, you can walk on its roofs.