Once you get passed the over 300 silver shops hawking their wares, some authentic, some eclectic, some silver plated, and some the award-winning real deal, you realize that there is a distinct reason that Taxco is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The sheer act of constructing the place over three hundred years ago is concept that requires some deep contemplation. 
The impossibly narrow and insanely steep streets wind and twist their way up the mountainside, turning the average daytime stroll into a heart-starting hike up to the Templo de Santa Prisca at 6000 feet. The Catholic church itself is in serious competition with it’s brethren in Oaxaca for the greatest combination of splendor and the grotesque; with almost every conceivable space adorned with intricate baroque, bas-relief sculpture and Anglo-Christian frescos, Prisca out-duels Santo Domingo on engineering prowess alone.
The actual mined silver from Taxco is long gone, the bulk of the current stock imported from newer Mexican resources, China and India, but the silver maestros remain. Some of the technical silver artisans are amongst the worlds best and it shows. But there is more to just dropping your remaining tourist cash on some 925 trinkets. Our personal find was a small doorway hidden below the central zocalo. Initially manned by an unassuming and intimidating Mexican abuelo, the Bazaar San Francisco was a painstakingly adorned personal collection, all for sale of course, of some of Southern Mexico’s most ubiquitous art. The owner, an obsessive-compulsive collector, made it clear that while he’d sell anything, including his original Mayan and Toltepec carvings and figurines, this was his home, his passion, his life. He said that if he had enough money he wouldn’t sell anything, he also said that since it was his house that he could sell stuff “mas barato, no es caro” than the other boutiques that had to fork over a stiff rent every month.
If you could manage to make your eyes focus on a single object the entire collected works was truly inspiring. We made a few purchases in hopes that his wife would notice the new openings and congratulate him on battling his hoarding obsession, one gringo sale at a time.
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