The Property Where Greg Stayed
	The City of San Miguel Allende
	Return to the Index for Our Mexico Trip

Greg booked an extremely nice Bed and Breakfast for him and his guests. For some reason, Greg booked so many guests during some of the weeks of his six-week stay that he himself had to stay in a different place across the street (and we will take a look at his lodgings on the next page). On this page I am going to put the best of the many pictures and movies that we took here at Casa Pina.

Where is Casa Pina?

Before I describe Casa Pina and take you on a tour, let's pinpoint the house in San Miguel.

If you take a look at the aerial view at left, you'll immediately pick out Jardin Allende, the main town square, at the top of the view, and at the south side of the plaza adjacent you will see the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel, San Miguel's cathedral and the most prominent structure in the city. The square and the church are the focal point of the old part of San Miguel, and indeed of the city as a whole.

If one leaves the square at its southwest corner, right beside the church, one walks south on a charming street called Cuna de Allende. Along this street, which you'll see in later pictures, are a number of restaurants (many of which we ate at during our stay), an art gallery or two, a pottery shop, a hotel and, at the south end of the street, where it dead-ends into Cuadrante Hospicio (which runs east-west) is a small corner area with an impressive sculpture, fountain, and places to sit. You'll see this little area later, too.

At this corner, if you jog southeast through this little corner, you will find yourself at the top of Aldama Street. As there are a number of destinations south of this point, there is a fair amount of pedestrian traffic that follows this route across Cuadrante Hospicio and down Aldama, so there were always people about- along with some street vendors and such (including our hat vendor- more later).

Finally, if you walk about a hundred feet south on Aldama, you will come to Number 8 Aldama on your left (the east side of the street).

Here I am, outside Number 8 Aldama. The door to our bed and breakfast was much like the doors to all the other establishments along the street, which was a typical one for San Miguel. Most street are plain, with almost continuous walls along either side of the street. Every so often, there will be a door- some ornate, some bordered with fake flowers, and some relatively plain. If the door is to a store of some kind, there may also be a window in which merchandise is displayed. Some residences may also have a window looking out onto the street.

Only when you go through one of these doors (almost all of which require either a key or for you to use an intercom to announce yourself and request entry) does the beauty of almost all the residences become clear. Most nice places have a gardenm and this garden is sometimes just inside the door. So the streets look plain, but this sameness belies the actual residences.

I wish that the resolution of the aerial views of places like San Miguel was better; in the US or in major cities, one would be able to see clearly the interior courtyard, garden, and buildings of Casa Pina, but the views available to me are relatively fuzzy and so not very helpful in laying out the house for you.

But, as you can see, Casa Pina is in a choice location- a two-minute walk from Jardin Allende, and literally in the shadow of la Parroquia. Greg made an excellent choice, but the location was just one of the attractions of Casa Pina.

How is Casa Pina Laid Out?

On this page, I intend to show you a selection of pictures taken inside Casa Pina. I also have a good movie tour for you to watch. We'll get to all that in a moment. But first, I'd like to describe the house generally for you, before I take you on a tour and then show you a selection of pictures.

Casa Piña is one of San Miguel de Allende’s colonial gems furnished with period antiques and original artwork. This three-bedroom and four-bathroom downtown villa sleeps up to six guests and is attended to by a courteous, diligent and trustworthy staff that provide personalized service for guests and the luxury of total leisure.

When you enter the door from the street, you are at the street end, and lower level of, a covered stone-floored "hallway" that leads forward to the courtyard. To your right is the owner/manager's suite, and to your left is the formal indoor living room of the home. As you continue forward and up some steps, the manager's suite is still to your right, and you also pass the indoor dining room on your left.

When you arrive in the courtyard, you see ahead of you a separated, two-story building that houses a bedroom/bath on each floor. To the left of that are some very pretty tiled stairs. If you go up the first flight of steps, you are on the level where the entry to the ground floor bedroom in that separated building is. If you continue up those stairs, you eventually come to the entry level for the upstairs bedroom. At that level there is also a spiral staircase that leads up to a rooftop patio atop the separated building. This patio offers great views of the parroquia and much of San Miguel.

Back in the courtyard, you can turn left and you are looking into the "outdoor" dining area/living room. The weather here is good enough that most folks spend most of there time here, rather than in the indoor living/dining room. There were only a couple of days that were cool enough, or rainy, such that eating inside or congregating in the indoor living room was the better choice.

As you face this outdoor (but covered) area, the kitchen is through a doorway to your left, and you also get into the indoor living/dining area from there. If you walk through the kitchen there is the entry to the garage and also a "back stairway"- a spiral staircase that leads up to the staff bathroom, laundry, and an extensive outdoor space atop this main building. There are a number of patio areas here, offering views across the courtyard and also to the south. (This patio area can also be accessed directly from the master bedroom which is on the second floor of this building, directly over the "outdoor" living/dining area.

Back down in the courtyard, you can take the same steps that lead up to the second-story bedroom in the separated building to come to the door to the master suite. It is quite large, with a bath and a half and a couple of closets, in addition to the spacious bedroom itself.

Finally, back down in the courtyard once again, you can go up that first flight of stairs and then continue to the back corner of the property where there is a beautiful garden, with lots of greenery, lounge chairs, and tables and such. We didn't use this area much, although our ground floor bedroom in the separated building had French doors that opened onto it.

All in all, the house was very spacious and very pretty, with lots of little nooks and crannies. I thought the back stairs and whole series of rooftop patios was a particularly nice feature.

A Tour of Casa Pina

Having just taken you on a verbal tour of the property, and shown you a few pictures of some of the rooms and areas, It's time for a more interesting and more comprehensive tour. Before we do that, and so you can compare what the owner says about the property with the reality of what the tour reveals, here is an extract of the Casa Pina Website's description of the property:

"Casa Piña's front door through the thick adobe walls of its original facade brings guests to a rare experience of peace, privacy and privilege. The home's focal point is the central patio with a large stone fountain in the middle. The south-facing "outdoor" living room and dining room is a year-round favorite with all guests. It fills with warm winter sunlight and remains cool and shady in the summer as the sun travels further north. It is a lovely spot to spend the entire day, to entertain or host a comida with guests. Another table in the cactus garden at the rear of the house provides an al-fresco dining option. At sunset, the rooftop mirador is the best spot in the house to start the evening in style or to reflect on the day’s events as the sky lights up in a colorful display and sun disappears behind the distant mountains. At Casa Piña, the three widely-separated bedrooms over three stories provide privacy, tranquility and rest. The second-floor master bedroom suite has a huge boveda (domed ceiling) and provides guests with total comfort and space. It includes a king-sized bed, an adjacent, private, outdoor sun deck, two walk-in closets, and two en-suite bathrooms. Banks of south facing french doors on either side of a fireplace keep the room toasty with direct natural light in the winter. The second bedroom, in a separate building, is half a flight up from the patio and has its own veranda. It has soaring ceilings supported by original beams, twin beds, fireplace, bathroom with shower, and French doors that open on to the cactus garden. The third bedroom sits atop the the second bedroom but is a full story up from the master bedroom suite. It has a has a double bed, bathroom with shower, and a comfortable terrace overlooking the central patio. Guests seeking higher ground will find it along with stunning views up the sprial staircase to the rooftop mirador, or lookout."

So now for the actual tour. This was an amazing place, and I think the only way to do a tour justice is to film the house- all of it.

A Tour of Casa Pina (Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible)

You can take the tour by using the movie player at left. In my movie tour, I'll begin outside and show you the facade of the house, and then we'll enter and walk up the stone steps to the courtyard. We'll first have a look around the courtyard, and then look at the ground floor of the main building- including the al fresco living area, the kitchen, and the indoor living and dining rooms.

Next, we'll head over to the separate building for our ground-floor bedroom, and then take a look at the back garden before heading up the stairs to the master bedroom. We'll leave that bedroom via the door to the mirador (outside rooftop patio) and then return down the back stairs and through the kitchen again. Finally, we'll go up the outside stairs again to the third bedrom, and then climb the circular stairs to the rooftop patio atop the separate building to take in the views out across San Miguel.

I hope you enjoy the movie, although it is not nearly as polished as many house tours you might see online. I had fun making it, even if I had no post-production facilities to clean it up and give it a professional look.

The movie should have given you an excellent idea of what it was like to stay here at Casa Pina, but we also took quite a few still pictures (Fred, myself, and Mohammed), and I want to include some of them here as well.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

The movie tour above was a single continuous take, and I didn't stop to take pictures along the way. But over the course of the two weeks we were here, Fred and I, as well as other guests, took a great many still pictures around the property. Of course, most of them were in the public areas, but I did try to get into all the rooms- with the permission of their then occupants, of course.

So I have taken the best of those pictures and put them into a slideshow, organizing them in basically the same order as the video tour above. So after you watch the video tour, you can go through the slideshow to see the same rooms in a bit more detail.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at right and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

This was, I think, the first time I've stayed in an AirBnB with a staff; indeed, everything was provided to enable us all to enjoy a pampered vacation. We had a full-time cook, Theresa, who did the shopping and prepared wonderful breakfasts and lunches, and she was aided by Lorena, who did the housekeeping and laundry. There was even a gardener who came in a couple of times a week to tend the banks of flowering plants and vines that grace the patios, walkways, sitting areas, and terraces. An English-speaking property manager (the owner's son) occupied the suite just inside the front door, but we didn't need him- once Greg got all the instructions on things the first week, and passed them on to us.

I have two more pictures that I would like to include here; both of them are panoramic views created by stitching together a number of individual pictures. The first is an expansive view of the master suite upstairs in the main house:

The second is a 180° view, south to north, from the mirador (rooftop deck) atop the separate building that houses the two bedrooms. I think the fact that the day was cloudy adds to the interest in the picture:

Greg did a wonderful job finding this place and being our host. Sadly, he was such a good host that he invited more people most weeks than the property could support, so he stayed for quite a while in another property just across the street. We'll take a look at Greg's lodgings next.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	The Property Where Greg Stayed
	The City of San Miguel Allende
	Return to the Index for Our Mexico Trip