Guadalajara – Tlaquepaque

Originally, the town of Tlaquepaque was a separate entity to Guadalajara. Over the years, however, Guadalajara has expanded and expanded until it now includes the town as a suburb of the city. It still has a distinct ambience, which is a massive magnet for tourists and artistic types. It’s an amazingly beautiful town and captures in one place the essence of Mexican life.


There is one main street in town which is bordered by various shops, restaurants and galleries. All the houses along the street are painted in a wide variety of extremely vibrant colours. Rather than clashing, they work together to create an amazingly beautiful street scape.


Inside the shops, is an amazing variety of different handicrafts, paintings and assorted junk. There’s even a few proper galleries with some rather nice sculptures and paintings.

One street over and there’s a huge range of restaurants. The one I went to is called La Ventana. It’s situated in a delightful tree covered courtyard behind the main street. The food was excellent and the staff very friendly. One of their specialities is a drink. It’s sort of like sangria, but it is served is a round, flat bowl. You then drink it from a straw. It was pretty interesting!


Even though the town is only about half an hour from downtown Guadalajara, the locals all think it’s a really long way away. It feels that way too. All the streets have been preserved with their original buildings, so it still feels like a quaint little town nestled away somewhere. The only down side, is that it’s very popular and can get a little overrun with tourists.

Pronouncing the town’s name can be a bit tricky, but the correct way is Tel-ak-a-pak-a or something vaguely similar. Some tourists call it Hokey Pokey, but the locals will know what you mean...