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GUANAJUATO

Against the wind whipping by his scenic mountaintop perch, Javier de Jesus Hernandez cheerfully explains how his city’s soul is really rooted in a far distant time and place, and instantly I am a believer, time travel or not.

Down in the sun-drenched valley below, Guanajuato surely looks like a relic from another era.

Sprawled along a steep ravine, it is a dusty, work-a-day city of incredibly narrow streets and quaint alleys or callejones, of elaborately decorated churches and mansions that seem to still breathe the air of another time.

And below them lies a thick warren of underground tunnels, some dating from colonial days, where traffic flows unabated, and which create the feeling of a parallel underworld

But the Guanajuato that he is talking about is not just the 500-year-old colonial relic left behind in the mountainous highlands of central Mexico by the Spaniards, who milked several hundred silver and gold mines, worked by native Mexicans in horrendous conditions, to feed their thirst for sparkling minerals.

His Guanajuato is also the city that predated the mountaintop city in the minds of its founders–a Mediterranean city, which, in turn, inspired the 16th Century style of pottery that he has tried to resurrect. His conviction about the city’s roots permeates the soft-brown-colored Moorish-looking house here where he lives and works and shows his paintings, sculptures and ceramics.

“People don’t think about their heritage,” says the middle-aged university professor and artist, who took to calling himself simply Capelo years ago and who has tried to re-create the lush-looking Majolica pottery that the Spanish brought to Guanajuato in the 16th Century. Though others disagree about its root, he is convinced that the name Majolica comes from the Spanish seaside city of Malaga.

This quest to reconnect with Guanajuato’s roots intrigues me.

It sets my emotional bearings as I wander about the more than mile-high city of 130,000-plus, and I meander most of the time on foot because the streets are so tiny that cars simply do not fit into the city’s historic center.

It reminds me that I am sauntering through a massive museum and my job is to appreciate the exhibits, the marked and unmarked ones. Guanajuato’s attraction is not glitzy restaurants or shops. It has a very old soul and story that it is willing to share.

And so, leaving my room in a 100-year-old French-style mansion turned into a boutique hotel at the peak of the city–the place where the rich once built their mansions to escape the warm weather–tree-lined streets funnel me downward past a small park, large old houses slumbering behind high walls, shops and schools, numerous buildings from the University of Guanajuato and then ultimately into the triangular shaped Jardin de la Union, the heart of the city.

Unlike other Mexican cities’ central squares, Guanajuato’s has a natural cover. A thick growth of carefully shaped Indian laurel trees form a green shawl that shields the sun from beating down on the black wrought iron benches, the small bandstand where musicians perform several nights weekly, and the cafes and hotel restaurants whose tables spill out onto the square.

Bands of every ilk descend nightly on the folks seated at the tables, and one night seated on a park bench I vicariously share the very public celebrations of a couple, who gleefully welcome one band after another, asking for yet more romantic songs, toasting each other and occasionally dancing beside their table.

Because the mood here is more low key than Mexico City or any of the glitzy resorts, it seems easy to melt into the background. Unlike San Miguel de Allende, which is about an hour away, there are not many other tourists, and being a stranger does not make you a magnet for unwanted attention or trouble.

Barely outside of the city is the Museo Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera, an 18th Century neo-European-style mansion with quiet, well-cared-for gardens of various designs. Together they provide an insight into the comfort enjoyed by the elite, who once benefited from Guanajuato’s mineral wealth. (Today, only about a dozen silver mines are still working.) There’s a small cafe at the entrance to the museum, now owned by the Mexican government, which offers a place to find solace on a busy day.

The mountaintop from where Capelo stares down at Guanajuato is also where La Valencia mine once churned out tons of silver. The sense of opulence that La Valencia and other mines bestowed on the city is captured by the Church of San Cayetano, which stands nearby just off the road and away from the mine entranceway.

Clustered close to the church’s plaza are several gift shops. Here, Detroit-born Randy Walz, an artist who found a home some time ago in Mexico and eventually opened an arts-and-crafts store in La Valencia, laments the fact that other expats are catching up with his discovery and looking for places to settle in Guanajuato.

Yet I am less moved by the spectacular vistas surrounding Guanajuato than I am by the experience of wandering in the crowded, compact city. The chances are greater that I’ll wander upon unexpected surprises.

At the edge of the Union de la Jardin, it is not hard to find the Teatro Juarez; an elegant four-story theater that was opened in 1903 by President Porfirio Diaz with a performance of “Aida.”

A shining example of gaudy late-19th Century designs–and obsessive attention to small details about decorations–it still is used for performances, especially at Guanajuato’s Cervantes Festival in the fall (this year: Oct. 5-23).

The front steps to the theater at night turn into an outdoor foyer, mostly packed with students, who sit and talk and watch the procession passing them by in the Jardin.

But only a few steps up from the theater on the same cobblestone street is a rather hushed place that catches my imagination even more: the Museo Iconografico del Quixote. The message of the mythical Spanish dreamer and hero of the downtrodden is captured in dozens of paintings, sculptures and murals that span several decades. There are images one might not attach immediately to Don Quixote. The fact that many art works came from Spaniards who found haven in Mexico during Gen. Francisco Franco’s rule over Spain adds another meaning to the museum.

I cross back through the Jardin and continue for a few more streets and come across another pleasant surprise, the museum that marks the birthplace of Diego Rivera. The modest four-story home, where the well-known artist and husband of Frida Kahlo was born in December 1886, is full of sketches and paintings, most of them from his early years.

I discover there is a payoff for patiently strolling through the museum when I arrive at a large fourth-floor room, which is taken up by a copy of his mural of a day in Mexico City’s Alameda Park. It is a stunning summary of Rivera’s leftist politics and lyrical embrace of Mexican history.

Then I set out in search of the home and workshop of Gorky Gonzalez, Guanajuato’s most famous ceramist.

My directions take me close to the city’s historic center, where I go past Guanajuato’s baseball stadium, which uniquely relies on a stretch of mountainside to back up its outfield, down a quiet side street beside a cluttered, muddy stream and up to a dark, uninviting windowless building.

Bad idea I tell myself. If nobody answers, I’m ready to head on. Exploring doesn’t always work.

I knock on the thick, old doorway–which opens by itself–and climb a winding metal stairway that leads to the second-floor store where his son, who is also called Gorky and who has a very young son also called Gorky, is puttering around. For my own sense of clarity, I dub the two adults Gorky Junior and Senior.

A soft-spoken man in his mid-30s, Gorky Junior is also a potter, though his eye is on sleeker, more modern styles of ceramics than his father.

Without much prompting, Gorky Junior explains the story of his father’s love of Guanajuato’s pottery.

Gorky Senior’s father, Rodolfo Gonzalez, was a sculptor, antique collector and a progressive-minded person, which explains why his son was named after Maxim Gorky, the working class-minded Russian writer. One day Gorky Senior was struck by some stunning ceramics that he had never seen before in his father’s antique store.

Rodolfo told his son it was a rare item and that the art of making such ceramics had long been forgotten in Guanajuato. Its beauty stayed with Gorky Senior as he, too, studied art in Mexico, and then, thanks to a scholarship, went off to Japan in the 1960s to study ceramics. There, he both learned the ways of ancient Japanese potters and fell in love with a young Japanese woman.

When the young, married couple returned to Guanajuato, Gorky Senior decided he would do all he could to rescue the Majolica style of ceramics. But he decided to add his own distinctly Mexican imagination. And he would use the same clay that the first Spanish-trained potters used when they came to Guanajuato.

“My father says the paint of the work is made greater by the fire,” Gorky Junior tells me, “but the soul of the piece is the wheel.”

Success came. The exhibits have been many, and artists and buyers from Mexico and elsewhere came to meet Gorky Senior, who had a well-known Mexican architect design his house in the heart of Guanajuato. The house sits within the foreboding walls that form a compound-like setting around it and the workshop.

Beyond the store and work rooms, the house opens into a large courtyard with a leafy garden and tall dome-like rooms with massive glass windows that make the greenery feel like a part of the rooms.

The son’s story ends and I am invited to meet Gorky Senior, who is sitting in the living room of his house.

The air is filled with the music of tropical birds from the garden. Thick, white walls are covered with photographs and paintings, many by well-known Mexican artists. There are rugs and ceramics everywhere.

We sit across an enormous table carved from mahogany and mesquite, talking about his love of the traditional ceramics that he has worked with for years–his art now that he is in his 60s–and how he hopes to soon have a wood-fired kiln.

That will give more feeling for the colors, he says. The feeling they had centuries ago.

“I can look at an old piece and I don’t need somebody to tell me about it. The work teaches you.”

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IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE

Mexicana and Continental Airlines have one-stop service from Chicago to the Leon/Guanajuato El Bajio International airport, about 20 miles from Guanajuato. Round-trip fares from Chicago start at just below $400. An authorized taxi into the city from the airport should cost about $27.

From Mexico City, the trip by car is about 4 1/2 hours. A top-of-the-line express bus will take slightly longer. ETN is one of the better bus lines; a one-way fare from Mexico City is about $25.

San Miguel de Allende, a popular spot for tourists, with several thousand North American residents, is just over an hour away on those same lines. A slower, less upscale way to San Miguel de Allende is through Dolores Hidalgo, where you can visit several pottery stores as well as an important place in Mexico history (Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla on Sept. 16, 1810, issued the cry for independence from his church here).

WHERE TO STAY

The telephone calling code for Mexico is 011-52.

I stayed at the Quinta Las Acacias (Paseo de la Presa; 473-731-1517; www.quintalasacacias.com.mx). Built more than a hundred years ago for a wealthy family, it was restored several years ago with a 19th Century European ambience. But three new rooms were fit into the mountainside at the rear of the building with a Mexican flavor–as well as Jacuzzis. With its windows open, the top room offers a stunning view of the mountains that cradle Guana-juato. $180-$230, breakfast included.

Casa Estrella de Valenciana (Callejon Jalisco 10; 473-732-1784 or, toll-free in the U.S., 866-983-8844; www.mexicaninns.com). The view from this quaint, 2-year-old, six-room mountaintop inn is breathtaking. One room is also disability friendly. Each room is decorated from tiles to tapestries in a different Mexican decor. Because it is away from the city, a car is convenient, though taxis are available. $150-$225, breakfast included.

Hotel Posada Santa Fe (Jardin de la Union; 473-732-0084; www.posadasantafe.com). Walk into the lobby and you are transported to Mexico at the middle of the 19th Century. The building has not changed much since its construction in 1862, though the rooms have been modernized. Located on the Jardin, this is a good place to anchor and have a drink or meal at night, listening to the strolling musicians. $80-$210, breakfast included.

Meson de los Poetas (Positos 36; 473-732-0705; www.mexonline.com/poetas.htm). Just down from the Diego Rivera museum and near the University of Guanajuato, this compact hotel has a quirky flair. Each of the hotel’s 31 rooms is named after a poet, whose picture is also displayed in the room. The larger rooms looking out on the busy street below are the most interesting. $85-$140, breakfast included.

WHERE TO EAT

The sprawl of cafes and hotel restaurants near the Jardin de la Union will satisfy–though probably not inspire–the curious eater. But Truco 7, named after its location on a narrow street near the Jardin, is a small, artsy place that’s reasonable and known for its typical Mexican offerings. On a hill facing Guanajuato is Casa del Conde de la Valenciana, the royalty of dining in more than one way. The home of the former count of La Valenciana, its upscale offerings–Mexican and international–are excellent. If it’s a sunny day, pick the patio. The only downside is that it does not offer dinner. It is only a short taxi ride to La Valenciana. Headed away from the center of the city and climbing the mountain towards a panoramic view is Casa del los Agaves (Paseo del la Presa 91), a comfortable, neighborhood place with sidewalk seating and innovative dishes.

WHAT TO SEE/DO

In addition to the Museum of the Home of Diego Rivera (Positos 47) and Museum of Don Quixote (Manuel Doblado 1) covered in the main story, the Mummy Museum (Esplanada del Panteon) is a curious must for some travelers.

The view from the monument to El Pipila (behind the Church of San Diego on the Jardin del la Union–you can get there by car or by the tram that runs up the mountainside) is striking, but so is the history behind it. The young miner, joining the growing rebellion at the start of the 19th Century against the Spanish, led an attack on a granary where the Spaniards were holed up.

Or hang out at the Jardin on Thursdays through Saturdays in the early evening, when singers and musicians in traditional Spanish outfits perform.

The Cervantes Festival is Oct. 5-23; for ticket information (in Spanish) go to www.festivalcervantino.gob.mx/Fic05/paginas/home.html.

SHOPPING

Gorky Gonzalez’s workshop, Calle Pastita, is just beyond the baseball field. Call 473-731-0389 to visit.

For Casa de Capelo, go past La Valencia toward the town of Dolores Hidalgo, and you’ll see a small, steep road on your left leading up a hill. At the top is Capelo’s workshop. Call 473-732-8964 to visit.

Stay on the road to Dolores Hidalgo, and you’ll reach Santa Rosa, a small community with a factory and store that also sells ceramics.

Back in Guanajuato, El Viejo Zaguan (Pocitos 64) is a small, quaint store near the Diego Rivera museum with an intriguing collection of shawls and other textiles.

INFORMATION

Guanajuato Tourism Office, Embajadoras 41; 473-732-1070.

State of Guanajuato Tourism Coordinator, Plaza de la Paz 14; 473-732-1574.

In Chicago: Mexico Tourism Board, 225 N. Michigan Ave.; 312-228-05217; 800-446-3942; www.visitmexico.com.

— Stephen Franklin

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sfranklin@tribune.com