San Miguel de Allende hotels collection

Zeferino Gutiérrez, a mason who had never seen Europe, redrew the façade of the Parroquia from postcards of Gothic cathedrals; he is said to have traced its plans in the sand with a stick. Its spires of pink cantera, a stone quarried from the nearby hills, rise above cobbled streets where the façades run from ochre to oxblood. On the edge of town, the Charco del Ingenio lines up its cacti along a canyon where a mill once turned. At Atotonilco, outside the town, the sanctuary's vaults are painted from end to end, and the faithful still come there on retreat.