Three reasons I Love Visiting Guadalajara - Video

Robert:

I spent this past weekend in Guadalajara. I always stay in the wonderful and atmospheric Hotel Morales, in the city's historic center. In the video below this post, there is a clip of the hotel's beautiful lobby, with massive stone arches, fountain, balconies, etc. Meanwhile here's a couple of stills:

It's just a great hotel, and is reason number one I love to visit Guadalajara. ("Guad." for short) A very famous Mexican celebrity was staying in the Morales while we were there, a singer called El Chapo de Sinaloa, and he was eating breakfast with his entourage at the next table, so my companion had her picture taken with him, of course. I was only slightly jealous.

Reason number two I love to visit Guad. is the spectacularly dramatic series of connected plazas, surrounded by magnificent historic buildings, that comprise the historic center. These plazas are just lovely, like the beautiful old colonial Mexico of your imagination, and are filled with activity day and night; street entertainers, free concerts in the band shell, horse drawn carriage rides, you name it. They are also surrounded by huge old department stores, for a little shopping if you want.

   

Reason number three is the fabulous Guadalajara Zoo (Parque Zoologico.). This is a really large old zoo that covers many, many acres; it has been around a long time, with big trees and beautiful gardens all through it. It is truly a zoo in a forest.

There is now a wonderful new attraction; the Sky Zoo, a double chairlift (yes, like a ski lift) that takes you all the way across the zoo, passing through the canopy of treetops, then at the far end of the zoo, doing a u-turn around the bull wheel at the end, overlooking the deep canyon beyond, then bringing you back across the zoo to where you started. See clips of this in the video below this post. Meanwhile, a still:

The zoo also has a train that circles the perimeter, with three train stations with rest rooms and snack bars. You can get on and off the train as you like.

The zoo also has a Safari Adventure, seen in the video, during which you can feed the giraffes from your hand. This is a big hit with everyone, every time; always shrieks and squeals of delight.

Melanie feeds the giraffe.

There is an aquarium, and a separate admission area called the Selva Magica (The Magic Forest), that is all rides. Roller coasters, hammers, octopus, himalaya, ferris wheels, etc., all the usual fairground rides, and in great numbers. This requires a day to itself.

(Oh, by the way, as you'll see there was a big parade through downtown Guad. on Sunday morning, with music-themed floats; a great, fun parade, with lots of dancing in the streets, and the crowd singing along and dancing a bit too. The macabre zombie-like dancers at the end were dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller, just in case you can't quite make out the music.)

Now, here's the video. The tiny, excited little voice belongs to Melanie, the 6 year old daughter of my traveling companion.