For more than 400 years, the Plaza has stood at the heart of Santa Fe. Originally it marked the far northern end of the Camino Real from Mexico; later, it was the goal for wagons heading west along the Santa Fe Trail. Today, this grassy square is peopled by tourists wandering from museum to margarita, food vendors, skateboarding kids and street musicians. Beneath the portico of the Palace of the Governors, along its northern side, Native Americans sell jewelry and pottery.
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Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
3.97 MILES
If you've been hankering for a trip to another dimension but have yet to find a portal, the House of Eternal Return by Meow Wolf could be the place for…
0.18 MILES
With 10 beautifully lit galleries in a rambling 20th-century adobe, this museum boasts the world's largest collection of O'Keeffe’s work. She’s best known…
20.8 MILES
Often called the Lourdes of America, the chapel was built in 1816, over a spot of earth said to have miraculous healing properties. The faithful come to…
Palace of the Governors & New Mexico History Museum
0.04 MILES
The oldest public building in the US, this low-slung adobe complex began as home to New Mexico’s first Spanish governor in 1610. It was occupied by Pueblo…
Museum of International Folk Art
1.75 MILES
Santa Fe’s most unusual and exhilarating museum centers on the world's largest collection of folk art. Its huge main gallery displays whimsical and mind…
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19.72 MILES
Bandelier's 1.2-mile Main Loop Trail in Frijoles Canyon offers an excellent introduction to the main ruins and history of the park. The trail first passes…
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
1.72 MILES
This top-quality museum sets out to trace the origins and history of the various Native American peoples of the entire Southwest, and explain and…
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24.25 MILES
You can't actually visit the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the first atomic bomb was conceived, but the Bradbury Science Museum has compelling…
Nearby Santa Fe attractions
1. Palace of the Governors & New Mexico History Museum
0.04 MILES
The oldest public building in the US, this low-slung adobe complex began as home to New Mexico’s first Spanish governor in 1610. It was occupied by Pueblo…
0.05 MILES
Built in 1917 and a prime early example of Santa Fe’s Pueblo Revival architecture, the New Mexico Museum of Art has spent a century collecting and…
3. Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
0.1 MILES
Primarily showing work by the students and faculty of the esteemed Institute of American Indian Arts, this museum also has the finest contemporary…
0.11 MILES
Santa Fe’s French-born bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy – hero of Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop – set about building this cathedral in 1869. Its…
0.13 MILES
Built in 1878 for the Sisters of Loretto, this tiny Gothic chapel is famous as the site of St Joseph's Miraculous Staircase, a spiraling and apparently…
0.18 MILES
With 10 beautifully lit galleries in a rambling 20th-century adobe, this museum boasts the world's largest collection of O'Keeffe’s work. She’s best known…
0.26 MILES
Billing itself as the oldest house in the United States, this two-room adobe building is said to date – in a much altered form – from c 1646. While…
0.27 MILES
Erected from 1610 onwards, by and for the Tlaxcalan Indians who arrived from Mexico with Santa Fe’s first Spanish colonists, this is considered to be the…