Santa Fe is a great place to relax and take a break from the world. It’s timeless. Today I showed my kids the oldest church, built in the 1600s with pieces imported to Santa Fe over the Camino Real from Central Mexico, a tremendous feat. The oldest house, featured in an 1879 Harper’s Weekly when12 families shared the tiny space. Then on to the miracle of Loretto Chapel and the force of will that it took Archbishop Lamy to complete the Cathedral Basilica dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi.

What is best about these stops? They are virtually unchanged from the first time I visited them with my parents. The Drury Plaza is a great base for your Santa Fe adventure with a rooftop pool for the kids and a bar for those of age. The sunsets from this vantage point are incredible and you can almost see a caravan moving into the city bearing a bell from the 1300s that had been carried by a ship from Spain, to Veracruz and over the treacherous journey of the Camino Real to its home here. You can ring the bell and it will show beauty despite adversity as it still rings just as beautifully as the day it was cast. It’s a place out of time and in this age of noise a welcome respite.