Albuquerque, NM - Through the ages

Albuquerque is a sprawling city, now the capital of New Mexico, but it has an old town at its centre from the 1700's. Actually it is not quite at the centre - when the real development started for the city around the coming of the railway it was a couple of miles from the old town. It was only in 1949 that the two Albuquerques were combined, with the old two reluctantly being brought into the new.

I found this out at the Albuquerque museum of art and history which, following the usual luck of my tour, had free entry on Sunday morning! This was bigger than I expected and, as well as histories of the area (including a film which brought us up to the "modern day" - 1980!) had some good art displays and an interesting exhibition on Tiffany glassware and the women behind it.

I then had a walk around the old town which had some very old buildings (including this church), lots of small art galleries and people dancing in the bandstand!

For a contrast I drove down the other end of town to the University of New Mexico. Here the architecture was much more modern, but still in the local style. There was also another art museum there which had an architecture exhibition amongst other displays.

My journey back was along the central avenue in Albuquerque which is the old route for Route 66 through the city. This led to some traffic congestion in times past! There are still signs, including the reproduction signs you can see below and another which said there are 790 miles to go to LA! I'd better get moving...

Back at the hotel I saw the end of the remarkable US Open (I had also been listening to it on my travels over the past few days) and the stunning victory by Rory McIlroy - definitely head and shoulders above the rest and a star for the future.