Guanajuato entrances visitors with its colonial-era architecture, winding cobblestone streets and festive plazas. The careful preservation of the buildings founded in the 16th century helped earn Guanajuato a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. Riches from local silver mines contributed to financing construction of the city's ornate mansions, theaters and churches. Some of the city's best-known landmarks act as backdrops for its annual festivals.
Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, author of “Don Quixote,” is the inspiration for Guanajuato’s biggest festival which takes place over two weeks each October. The Cervantino International Festival began decades ago with a staging of Cervantes’ plays in local plazas. Today, the festival has evolved to incorporate a variety of plays, concerts, dance and opera performances by an international roster of artists. Performances take place inside the elegant Juarez Theater, which has elaborately crafted stained glass windows. Other events take place outdoors in city plazas.
Late July marks the start of the annual 10-day Guanajuato International Film Festival. The program includes short films and feature-length documentaries from Mexico and other countries. Film showings also take place in neighboring San Miguel de Allende. In Guanajuato, free film screenings take place outside historical buildings such as the Alhondiga, Guanajuato’s main plaza Jardin de la Union and inside tunnels that wind beneath the former mining city. Movies are limited to 30 minutes in length.
Two back-to-back festivals take place each year before Easter. On the Thursday two weeks before Easter, dozens of wide tables in the city`s main plaza display colorful arrays of flowers for sale at the Dance of the Flowers Festival. The next day, for the Our Lady of Sorrows Festival, Guanajuato’s silver mines are open to the public for tours, and decorated altars are displayed. You can also tour the mines and attend a fair during Cave Day on July 31.
Each Sept. 28, a parade is scheduled for the Day of the Taking of the Alhondiga celebration. The parade winds past the Alhondiga de Granaditas, a former granary, to celebrate the day when Mexican forces seized the building from Spanish troops during Mexico’s fight for independence from Spain. Inside, see pre-Columbian and colonial-era artifacts at what has become a regional museum. Watch folk dancing and fireworks at the annual Our Lady of Guanajuato Festival in May outside the 17th century Basilica of Our Lady of Guanajuato.
