Just joining us? Please check out part 1 and 2 of our Journey through Guadalajara here.
Waking up the next morning after our awesome night on the town I headed down to my new favorite coffee house, Almund, to have a cup before Michal gets up.
We have quite the itinerary ahead of us. First brunch, then a great friend’s wedding and reception…should be very exciting!
Once we are both ready, we taxi out to Avenida Chapultepec to walk around, explore and enjoy the weather. We noticed some street vendors lining the center median of the street with their wares, so we take a peak and end up buying some bracelets and trinkets. Getting hungry, we walk over to the culinary star of the trip: Allium. Deciding to split a bottle of Rosé, we settle in to read through their menu and make our decisions. We started with the cheese board, which by itself was pretty amazing. Just sitting on a street corner, in beautiful Guadalajara, sipping a glass of Rosé and snacking on fine cheeses…life can’t get much better than that! Well it does for me after I decided to get the octopus as an appetizer!
Although Michal was a little weirded out by the octopus; I loved it and commended the restaurant on how it was perfectly cooked. For a land-locked city it was spectacular and one of my favorite meals. For entrees, Michal had the beef short rib, which fell apart the moment she cut into it and I had the duck. As a rule of thumb, if I see duck breast on the menu anywhere, I always get it. The duck breast at Allium was on point. Cooked perfect medium/medium rare with an Ancho Chili sauce. Yum, I'm dreaming of it right now. Of course we had desert too but the main course and appetizer were the highlights for us.
With our bellies full and a little time to kill, we walked around the corner to Los Arrayanes Café so I could get a cup of coffee.
This was a beautifully landscaped café tucked into an old colonial style house, and it gave us the perfect opportunity to relax and well, digest. So relax we did until it was time to make our way back to our hotel and get cleaned up for the wedding.
About 45 minutes prior to the time the wedding was supposed to start, we walk down to the lobby of the hotel and notice several nicely dressed wedding goers cramming into a shuttle van. After watching a couple of other Americans climb in, we thought,"this must be the bus!" So without a second thought, we get into the van. About 15 minutes into our drive to the wedding, I looked at my phone and come to the realization that we are heading west into town instead of east towards the correct direction of the wedding. Well, there we are, in a shuttle with a driver who speaks no English heading to the wrong wedding on the wrong side of town. We arrive at the wrong church and quickly confirm with the nearest English speaker that we were indeed at the wrong place (sure was a beautiful church and park).
I run ahead and hail the only taxi on the street. Luckily he speaks enough English and got our need to get there quickly. This man, understanding the severity of our situation, proceeds to break every traffic law in the country and got us to the wedding right before the groom started walking down the aisle. What kind of event in Mexico starts on time anyway? The wedding was picturesque and the reception was out of a dream.
Except for fireworks going off in our face during the first dance… that was unexpected. But seriously, we were so happy for our friends and that wedding is something we won't soon forget.
Did we mention that there was an open bar with unlimited shots of tequila and a late night churro stand? Those churros filled a need we didn't know we had until we smelled them! It truly was a wonderful evening.
The next morning, I thought I’d skip the coffee house for something with a little more substance: breakfast tacos and Chilequiles. Around the corner from the hotel was a packed, and I mean standing room only packed, place called La Guera that absolutely fit the bill.
The Chilequiles in red sauce was perfect. Soon enough we were feeling revived and ready to go met the wedding family at El Abajeno for more celebration, drinks and food. There was music, dancing, great conversations and it was a wonderful way to wrap it all up.
Later that evening exhausted and stuffed; we stopped and had a drink at El Deposito, the craft beer bar next to the hotel. Though we called it an early night, we savored our last evening together in this wonderful town.
The next morning we had a few hours to kill before we flew out so we packed up all our stuff and headed back down to El Centro Historico to grab a bite for breakfast and pick up a few last touristy items before we depart. We found a traditional bakery and picked up some goods, which we ate at the Starbucks next door and then ventured back through a mostly deserted Paseo Degollado.
The sky was clear, the crowd was minimal and it was absolutely beautiful. We picked the last of our souvenirs before grabbing our bags at the hotel and heading to the airport.
The trip was not your typical American adventure in Mexico, it was something better; we explored the city, new food and saw two families joined together and truly had an amazing time. Michal loved her first trip out of the US and she recommends that at less than a 3 hour flight from Dallas, you should give this wonderful city a try! #WKNDR.
