Click images for caption and to enlarg

Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas The sights and sites in Santa Fe show how drastic the city's colors - naturally and culturally - come together. Latin décor in the Hacienda Doña Andrea (in Cerrillos) Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas Talavera pottery in the Hacienda Doña Andrea (in Cerrillos) Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas Old, peeling adobe of the Santa Fe Village. Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas Shadows on the adobe buildings and sunset on the Saint Francis Cathedral. Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas Chef Rocky Durham, with Santa Fe School of Cooking, demonstrates how to make a red chile sauce. Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas The exterior of Hacienda Doña Andrea de Santa Fe shows how owners Anne and Max Contreras stayed true to the adobe, Southwest style of building. The bed and breakfast in Cerrillos, about 30 miles south of Santa Fe, provides an expansive view of The City Different and surrounding valley. Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas Colorful blankets, tapestries and shawls drape over the adobe walls along a street in Santa Fe's plaza. Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas A procession to celebrate the cathedral's 150th anniversary, is uniquely Santa Fe. Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas A procession to celebrate the cathedral's 150th anniversary. Click to close Image by: Amy Maestas La Fonda Hotel

History of Santa Fe and its culture

The City Different is Santa Fe's nickname. It came about in 1912, when city leaders put laws into place that would always require structures to be built in historic Pueblo Revival and Territorial architectural styles. But long before officials enacted laws, Santa Fe had cemented its image and style because several Pueblo Indian Villages that date as far back as 1050 originally inhabited the site. Though there is not much evidence of these villages today in Santa Fe, the influence is prevalent and has blended with the Spanish influence that entered in the mid-1500s. Throughout its storied history - one replete with conquers, bloody wars, Franciscan missionaries, territorial negotiations - Santa Fe has kept as much of its relics as it has been able. The Palace of the Governors is one such example. Today, it is the place to see and buy Native American jewelry and other wares that members of the various surrounding pueblos offer. Weekly, the peddlers display their goods on colorful blankets lining the sidewalks of this old building. The Palace is one of the oldest in the country - and one that was once at the center of a battle. In the 1600s, Spanish soldiers launched a campaign to overpower and convert Pueblo Indians that had long been in place in the region. Historians estimate that there were 70 multi-storied pueblos in the area. Through many years of back-and-forth warring, the Pueblo Indians revolted against the Spanish colonists in 1620.Of the approximate 2,500, the Pueblo Indians killed 400 and sent the rest scampering back to Mexico. The Pueblos sacked Santa Fe and burned to the ground existing buildings. They spared the Palace of the Governors. (The Indians continued their occupation only for about 12 years before Don Diego de Vargas entered the picture and yet another bloody siege played out.) Despite the cities oft-ugly battles, Santa Fe has been able to preserve much of its look and feel. Art came to the city early in its official history. The Museum of New Mexico opened in 1909 and the Museum of Fine Arts opened in 1917. Those museums signify the early days of Santa Fe's long-standing culture of art. Then in 1926, the Old Santa Fe Association sought "to preserve and maintain the ancient landmarks, historical structures and traditions of Old Santa Fe, to guide its growth and development in such a way as to sacrifice as little as possible of that unique charm born of age, tradition and environment, which are the priceless assets and heritage of Old Santa Fe." To ensure the legacy of fine architecture and history, the city government, in 1958, put historic preservation and zoning mandates in place. This includes keeping the Spanish-Pueblo architecture and adobe and wood construction. Though many towns and cities in the Southwest have tried to emulate this style, the real deal is in Santa Fe. The City Different. - Amy Maestas

Red or green?

It's the ubiquitous question in New Mexico. You'll hear it dozens of times when you are in the state, especially while eating.

If you are a seasoned visitor or resident, you know that the answer makes a world of difference. It seems like a simple color choice wouldn't have much affect on your dining experience. But if you truly want to soak in all that New Mexico has to offer, knowing how to answer that question will be the first part of understanding what makes this Southwest state a unique lure for tourists who visit it every year.

This is true in Santa Fe. It's one of New Mexico's most visited cities - just more than 1 million people flock to the city in the north-central part of the state. And they've been doing so for decades, because this is a city can probably rightly claim that it has inimitable sights and smells. Consider the riant shoppers, august cathedrals, imbuing earthy colors of the sky, sunset and trees, and the imaginative pleochroic adobe structures. Consider the wafts of roasting chiles, toasting tortillas, simmering saffron in the paella and piney fires. This is Santa Fe. This is the City Different.

In 2010, Santa Fe will celebrate its 400th anniversary. In the ensuing years since it was settled, Santa Fe has become an admixture of contemporary infusion and constant Pueblo Indian village. New and old have worked themselves in with each other, and this includes everything from food, to art, to architecture, to community. For most residents and tourists it works.

Santa Fe capitalizes on its image. It must.

In terms of size, New Mexico is the fifth largest in the United States - smaller only than Montana in the eight Rocky Mountain states. In spite of its size, New Mexico is the second poorest state in the nation - second only to Alabama. With few major cities (Santa Fe is the third largest in the state), New Mexico relies on its recreational resources as its draw. That makes tourism the leading economic activity in the state.

Santa Fe contributes mightily to the tourism economy and has done so for centuries. When visiting, you'll always be attracted to the city's mainstays, even with the amorphous arts-and-culture community. Because of deep roots in Southwest look and feel, Santa Fe won't lose its iconic sense of place. This is a place where, like its neighbor about 70 miles to the north, Taos, its art and culture, not to mention its stunning landscape, has drawn a varied cast of characters over the decades.

But new changes are taking place.

For example, the state is building the Rail Runner, a commuter train that will move riders between Santa Fe and Albuquerque in an hour-and-a-half. The Railyard is being built, which is a $100 million commercial center that will have live-in artists studios, a cinema, a permanent home for the Santa Fe Farmers Market, a park, a plaza and a promenade. Keeping true to its image of being environmentally sensitive, this new building - smack dab in the center of downtown - will practice water harvesting and other money-saving techniques. Some of the city's most-known businesses will call the The Railyard their new home, including SITE Santa Fe and El Museo Cultural (both of which are already located on the land where the commercial center is being built).

The Railyard is a way of bringing back Santa Fe's past - one that had early influence in the city becoming a tourist destination. It was in 1880 that the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company first arrived in the city via a spur line. Hotels began popping up, as well as trading posts, galleries, an ice rink, swimming and an all-around social center. That all disappeared as the rail industry shrunk. It has taken 20 years - since the 1980s - for the city to redevelop the railyard area, but now that it's taking shape, its presence will require that Santa Fe's heritage envelope contemporary changes.

With changes happening in Santa Fe, it's worthwhile to admit that glossing over a 400-year history isn't going to happen. Nor could it. The city has its mainstays, its ever-popular spots that tourists, even regional ones, can take in during a short period of a weekend. Here is a sample.

In a city of about 70,000 residents, there are 571 restaurants. Suffice it to say that Santa Fe, long known for its impressive and delectable cuisine and restaurant choices, is a foodie's heaven. Don't be fooled into thinking that Santa Fe has only New Mexican cuisine; indeed, it has a diverse restaurant scene that feeds the city's reputation for mixing haute cuisine and down-home cooking.

But as chef Rocky Durham with the Santa Fe School of Cooking says, Santa Fe (and the entire state) restaurants rely largely on the certain spices and sauces found in New Mexico. The cooking school is a low-key yet polished program that makes it easy for novice cooks to learn how to blend the one-of-a-kind flavors of this area.

Set up in a cozy kitchen next to a market that offers a range of items for cooking (from chiles to cookware), the school teaches a variety of classes that are both demonstration-style and hands-on. Many of the classes are taught by the charismatic Durham, a renowned chef and native New Mexican (who was a former chef at a premiere Santa Fe restaurant, Santacafe). With a couple of decades of experience and a monthly syndicated food column, Durham shares with students an impressive breadth of knowledge about more than just how to prepare something. He boosts the interest by speaking about the connection between what people cook with and where the ingredients come from.

Both Durham and the school owners, Susan Curtis and Nicole Curtis Ammerman, push the practice of buying local products. Part of that is to help boost the big dependence New Mexico has on its tourism base. It's also an appeal for people to create a kind of bond with what they eat in a celebratory way. Tens of thousands of students have taken classes from the school since it opened in 1989 and learned one of the best ways to make carne adovada, enchilada sauce, salsas, tamales and much more.

Durham says the school is working toward expanding cooking classes into field trips such as farms and wineries so that students can incorporate knowing the origins of what they are using to cook. It's that connection between source and finished product that Durham says is critical to putting the soul into a dish's taste.

Artist's canvas

Perhaps just slightly higher on the list of what Santa Fe is known for is its art offerings. Georgia O'Keeffe had a big influence on that. Though artists flocked to Santa Fe before O'Keeffe arrived in the 1940s, her configurations of New Mexico landscapes in her art brought Santa Fe to high fame. It was welcome at the time, because for many years, Santa Fe was second fiddle to Taos for attracting the arts to its city in the early 20th century.

Eventually, Santa Fe came into its own for its arts and culture scenes. Photographer Alfred Steiglitz spent time here, as did singer Bob Dylan, poet D.H. Lawrence, authors Willa Cather (whose novel Death Comes for the Archbishop was inspired in Santa Fe) and Cormac McCarthy. Actress and resident Shirley MacLaine frequently talks of Santa Fe as if it is her first love, her inspiration for life and the center, quite literally, of her universe.

It is small wonder, then, that the city and community of Santa Fe has fostered its relationships with celebrities - from a cross-section of talent. Depending on your passion and knowledge of art and culture, it's almost certain that you will find a connection in Santa Fe.

But contemporary art takes a back seat in history in Santa Fe. One of the city's largest draws is the rows of Native American jewelers and artists who sell their wares under the portals of the Palace of the Governors in the downtown square. This tradition has been growing since the 1960s, when Americans showed a growing interested in Native American culture.

Not to be overshadowed by art and food, the healing energy and powers of Santa Fe play prominently into the entire package. Probably third to these other two are the number of spas and natural body treatment centers that exist in this city. This includes traditional and nontraditional methods. Santa Fe became a land of the cure as long ago as the 1912, when Texas and California shut out people who suffered from tuberculosis - a ravaging disease at the time. New Mexico's dry climate helped consumptives heal.

For traditionalists - most often religious folks - Santa Fe's imposing Cathedral of San Francis of Assisi is the center of the faith community. Situated in the heart of the downtown plaza, the cathedral stays connected to its Latin roots and is often the site of various religious holidays during which the church's members pay homage to their Christian traditions. This often includes biblical re-enactments, celebratory processions and Spanish-speaking Mass.

For nontraditionalists, the waters, land and medicinal practices take place in the abundant number of spas Santa Fe hosts. Among them is the world-famous Ten Thousand Waves mountain resort and retreat. Here, the spa has mixed the cultures of Japan and the Southwest U.S. to give relaxation-seeking tourists a destination for pampering.

Of course, Santa Fe would not be a place that didn't offer a total package. Various historic inns and hotels in this old city carry years of stories. There also are convenient motels, RV parks and luxury resorts. That's the bonus of Santa Fe - it has variety in accommodations.

A standout, however, is the Hacienda Doña Andrea de Santa Fe. It's located in Cerrillos, some 30 miles south of Santa Fe. But essentially, it is a Santa Fe experience that its owners deliberately strived to create. And they took seven years to do it.

Finished in 2000, Anne and Max Contreras built the hacienda in the kind of way that pays homage to New Mexico. Max Contreras is a native New Mexican. His intent when building the Hacienda Dona Andrea (named after Max's late wife, who was part of the inspiration and instigation for building the place) was to partly use it as a place for his fellow professors at California State University, where Max is a professor of multicultural studies at the graduate school, to hold retreats. According to Anne, the couple sought to use the place to indulge their passion for something beautiful and inspirational. Most importantly, Anne says, is that they wanted the hacienda to look as if it had been in existence for 400 years - like Santa Fe. Authenticity was important.

The couple succeeded. The nine-room bed and breakfast sits atop a hillside that provides an expansive view of Santa Fe and the valley floor. The adobe walls enclose a colorful, stunning interior with viga beams, kiva fireplaces and grand doors. During construction, Anne says the family traveled to Latin American two to three times each year to gather interior decorations. The key, she says, was buying things that they had a personal connection to, especially as their traveling adventures were part of the process of decorating the place.

The wall outside the hacienda's office holds several Tarahumara pots, purchased from the Indians of northern Mexico. The porous pots, used by the country's second-largest Indian tribe, strike a balance against the pinkish terra cotta walls. Though they hang in the hacienda, the Tarahumara often place the pots filled with water outside their doors. They then act as both a source of water and as an evaporative cooler for the often dry and hot air.

A gorgeous display of talavera pottery adorns the long wooden table in the hacienda's dining area. The wall of masks above the commons area fireplace is a display of Latin American culture, and is especially representative of the Contrerases journeys to San Miguel de Allende, Guatemala, Oaxaca, Peru, Columbia - and on. Ann says she and Max tried to closely follow the original trade route of the Camino del Rio up into Santa Fe. It was their one way of ensuring striking the authenticity of New Mexican culture.

The hacienda has become an exceptionally popular place for weddings and tourists and less a place for retreating professors. But Anne and Max welcome any kind of connection their visitors make with the place, much the same way they have in creating a replica of the Santa Fe area. You wouldn't know that the Hacienda Dona Andrea appeared in 2000. It fits right in with the history and culture of a place that has worked so hard to preserve its past while swaying with the every-changing economy of a tourist industry and pleasure-seeking diners, artists, healers and glitterati that share a space where a question as simple as red or green - sauce - colors the experience of Santa Fe.

Amy Maestas has learned that the best answer to "red or green?" is "Christmas."