Guanajuato made the silver that paid for the Spanish empire, and the money is still visible in the churches and the opera house. The state sits in the Bajío, the fertile basin that became the cradle of Mexican independence.
Guanajuato city is built into a ravine so narrow that much of its traffic runs through tunnels beneath it — former river channels, now roads. Above them are painted alleys too steep for cars, a university that fills the town with students, and the Cervantino, the largest arts festival in Latin America, each October.
San Miguel de Allende is the other pole: a cobbled colonial town that has drawn foreign artists and retirees since the 1940s, with the consequences you would expect for both the restaurants and the prices.
Dolores Hidalgo is where the priest Miguel Hidalgo rang his church bell in September 1810 and called the country to revolt — the grito re-enacted every year by every Mexican president.
León is the industrial counterweight, a city of a million and a half that makes most of Mexico's shoes and leather.
