Morelia is an amazing city but many people have wondered is it safe to visit? Michoacan is
one of the six Mexican states on the travel advisory's do not travel list due to crime
and kidnapping Morelia the state's capital is a UNESCO World Heritage site full of rich history
incredible architecture and indigenous culture we've been here a couple weeks now so we've
got some great tips for you but we'll of course also talk about whether or not we feel safe here
let me officially welcome you to the beautiful city of Morelia we are Jenny and Kevin two Mexican
Americans from Chicago traveling throughout Mexico to reconnect with our roofs and in search of a new
home so if this is your first time joining us make sure to subscribe and hit the Bell
so that you can follow us on our journey we're going to start our day with our favorite snack
here in Morelia nuts de gazpacho from El Guero De La Merced when I first heard that there were
in Morelia I imagine the spanish-style tomato cold soup that I had when I studied abroad in Spain but
to my surprise that it has nothing to do with that it has the same name I'm not sure why if you know
please comment down below so the gazpacho is a fruit cocktail and the traditional one comes with
small pieces of cubed mango jicama pineapple but the surprise comes in the fact that there's
cheese salt pepper and Valentina sauce for many people it's the cheese part that's like cheese
on fruit it's the really weird part but you guys if you haven't tried this before it's amazing
it's a super cool combination of sweet Citrus and salty and spicy flavors it has everything
this is the epicenter from Morelia Center historico Plaza de Armas also known as
Plaza de los Mártires because this is where the Mexican Independence Heroes were brutally
murdered but aside from that random fact it's also important to know that this is the main hub for morelia's many festivals
all around plaza de armas are beautiful cafes and restaurants
a few that we've eaten at and a few that we've just been eyeing all week like this Panoli one here we're going to be showing you
our favorites with of course saving our the best one for last but right now I want to switch our
attention over to the beautiful Teatro Mariano Matamoros where we visited in previous videos
check out this clip that we took last night at their inauguration for their 34th annual Music
Festival festival de musica de Morelia which I believe is mostly classical music but it's
International they invite people from all over the world I could go on and on but we've got
a lot to cover today other restaurants to know in this area are el restaurant La Tarasca
where you can find one of michoacan's most traditional dishes La sopa tarasca
and if you're looking for a great view of Morelia Centro you can check out the Rooftop
at El Campanario Cafe across the street from Plaza de armas is my favorite Street in all of Morelia it
is Paseo De Hidalgo and it's my favorite Street in all of Morelia not just because of the beautiful
decorations but because of the restaurants that are here to my left you have Cafe Michelena where
you can find some really delicious pastries and coffee on the right hand side we had some
delicious enchiladas morelianas at El Tragadero which we highly recommend and at the very end is one of Jenny's
favorites it looks a little empty right now but a few days ago for Día de Muertos this was packed
with thousands okay maybe it's an exaggeration but hundreds of people and then the big skulls
though they were so pretty it's nice to have it what feels like all to ourselves right now
I can see my favorite elote spot already this is not your regular street corner street elote your
regular chaska your regular esquite elote en vaso or whatever you want to call it this is on a whole nother level the
reason I think it's on a whole nother level is because they not only have you know your elote
that that one particular one that's the main strain in Mexico but they also have the yellow
corn and being from Illinois I just I love my yellow corn but the other thing here are
the salsas you've got all kinds from peanuts to sesame seed garlic cucumber Chile de arbol
habanero chimichurri all different kinds of salsa so there's a whole buffet of salsas and different
things that you can plant in it my favorite is this one so let's get one so I can show you what
that looks like so I like a combination of both sweet and spicy so I'm gonna do a little bit of
this pineapple salsa I also like the cacahuate one the sesame seed one yeah but I've got to leave
room for my favorite part which are these totopos these fried tortilla chips which are sauteed with
chili and sesame seeds they just make the best topping they give it that nice crunch
all done that was delicious I went by really fast elotes are nice and
all but before you leave Morelia you have to make sure that you try corundas and
uchepos so we're gonna head to El Santo Nino because we hear they make the best let's go
to try corundas here in Michoacan we came to El Santo Niño and there are two different kinds of corundas
this is a traditional dish from Michoacan it looks a lot like a Tamal but they have
a very different shape one is a triangle shape and the other one's kind of just flat like a
Tamal the one on your right here is made with Manteca which is pork lard and the one on the
left is made with ashes just kidding they just kept the name ashes I don't know why
but they used to be made with ashes and they just kept the name so let's try it
out this Michoacan delicacy Jenny prepped them with Crema and salsa from the house
um they're both really good but I like the ashes one better because of the texture the taste salsa
and mercado Santo Niño you can come get a uchepo this is my first time trying it and it looks
like a tamale they have two options they have salty and sweet they didn't have any of the
salty ones anymore which come with Crema and salsa So today we're going to try the sweet one
oh yeah it's like cornbread or like sweet cornbread
a visit to Morelia is not complete with at least a quick stop to admire the beautiful cathedral de
Morelia it's Baroque style architecture on pink Cantera Rosa stone is emblematic of the city and
it's one of the reasons why it has the nickname La suda De La Cantera Rosa because this Stone
you'll see it all throughout the historic Center and if you're as big of a fan of this pink stone
as we are then you'll definitely want to check out these other cities if you haven't already
San Miguel Allende for the church also made of Cantera Rosa and one of my favorites I think is
one of the prettiest cities made of the pink colonial style stone architecture and this
is exactly what that reminds me of I'm honestly just thinking of how much I love Zacatecas right
now but these churches we like to visit not necessarily because we're super religious but
because we can admire the art and the beauty that is inside so let's go take a quick look inside
Plaza San Agustin is often used as a public space for events an artisan market and street food stalls you'll
find some good local food and fun random art fun fact this was formerly a cemetery for religious
missionaries known as agustinos on the other side of Plaza San Agustin is this really cute
alley with cafes restaurants and at night it's gorgeously lit up with all those lights I think
it's one of those nice little hidden gems that most people might not know about so that brings
us to the Jardin Del Arte de Las Rosas or El Jardin de Las Rosas as it's known around here it's not only got of course lots of
beautiful roses all around the garden but a lovely fountain it's a place I love to walk through and
come check out the really cool art that they're usually selling and on display I love how they've
circled the entire fountain with all the art look at these little dragons and stuff wow and there's
some really big ones over here too this looks like a harp we did say it was a garden full
of art and a bunch of flowers right look at this beautiful artwork right here that's all twisted up
I wonder how it got like that it looks like something out of Guillermo Del Toro trippy huh
man this is a big city we've been walking around all day I just wanted to take a moment to sit down
and admire what I think is my favorite movie theater in Mexico the Cinépolis here in
Morelia is gorgeous both inside and outside we were here for the film festival and we got to
see the oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins for If Beale Street Could Talk uh direct for Moonlight
anyway I digress you can always check that video if you're interested we just wanted to point out
what a gorgeous movie theater there is and then across from the Cinepolis is the University of
Michigan I mean the University of Michoacan speaking of Michigan I'm wondering if there's
any sort of relationship between Michoacan and the state of Michigan Michigan like Michigan
the reason I think there might be a connection is because of the meaning of each word both
are derived from indigenous languages completely different ones that is the word Michoacan is said
to derive from the Nawa language and is said to mean place of fish but is also said to be derived
from the word meaning placed by the water but the Curious part is that the word Michigan which is
derived from the ojibowa Native American language means great or large lake so if they both have
similar meanings and are related to water and they sound the same Michoacan Michigan I don't
know what do you guys think another must-see in Morelia is the Centro Cultural Clavijero this Cultural
Center and museum has art exhibits and history of the city of Morelia and I think this just might
be my favorite structure in the city not just because it's beautifully structured but because
it has some cool history it took 97 years for this Palace to be built and it was initially built as a
religious education center back when it was still called Valladolid it was the city was then renamed
in 1828 to Morelia in honor of Jose Maria Morelos one of the main Heroes of the Mexican Independence
This is the fountain Las Tarascas, three beautiful Tarasca women holding up a basket of fruits and vegetables but actually this used to be
called Fuente de las indias or Fountain of the Indians which brings up the question what
exactly is a tarasca and how does that how is that different from a pure pecha
so we've mentioned before that the purepechas are the indigenous community that are in this
region of Michoacan but the purepechas are also interchangeably called tarascas so what exactly
is the difference you've got Tarasco versus Purepecha Tarasco is actually a word in the Purepecha
language which is used to describe a kinship relationship like a father-in-law a son-in-law
or a daughter-in-law and the use of this word historically comes from when the native Kings
after having given their daughters off to marry to the colonizers would refer to their the Spanish
men as tarascos meaning like son-in-law but the Spanish men thought that that was you know what
they were called so then they started calling them tarascos in return so today you hear both Purepecha and tarasco
used interchangeably and welcome to romance alley romance is a great place to come and get a kiss
thank you they also say that if you lock a little padlock on here your love will last forever
I don't have a padlock do you think we're gonna be okay you guys think
we'll be okay I think we'll be okay okay let's go check out this beautiful alley
it's so romantic already it's not just the flowers but the couples here who just got married if I could
count on my hands the number of couples that I've seen who just got married I'd need more hands this
is a great place to come and get wedding photos I'm gonna hold your hand I'm feeling romantic
I guess even if you're not getting married it is a nice spot to come and just take a
walk hold hands look at the flowers and spot the poem verses it's not just called romance
alley because this is where couples come to make out or where newlyweds come take their
pictures but also because there are hidden poem verses like this one that we just found that says
I'm gonna have to think about this one a little bit
any interpretations out there I'm not very good with poetry but it sounds romantic
we found a rooftop and fountains more poem verses oh there this quinceañera we saw earlier
that makes me so nostalgic mine was over 10 years ago now 12 13 years ago and of course we're saving
the best for last this is one of the most serene and beautiful places you can visit in Morelia it's
El Calzado Fray Antonio de San Miguel if you happen to come by on a weekend you might just get surprised the same way
that we were surprised today with this beautiful display of floral carpets that the music festival
decided to display from local communities and this thing is gorgeous it stretches out really long and
check out how beautiful this is festival de musica how beautiful that it seems like Morelia always
has a festival in fact starting from September 29th all the way through December you have a
festival in the city every single weekend and the butterflies of course are emblematic for Michoacan
it's Monarch season they were they're on their way if they haven't already arrived to the reserves oh
my gosh this is amazing we told you we were going to save the best for last right we're here at our
favorite Cafe panaderia this place has the best bread and coffee that we've had in Morelia
and we can't wait to show it to you come on all right we've been here probably five or six times
already in our favorite thing to get for me is the matcha latte Kevin likes to get the hot chocolate
with pecans so they're like blended in there it's really nice and then they my favorite part is when
they offer to show you the bread basket because there's usually an awesome selection of them so
today we went for the Concha de Jamaica you can already tell that I poked it a little bit just
to see how soft it is because I was super excited for it I've never had a Concha de Jamaica before so
we're really excited for this one to see if it really tastes like like oh my God our Hibiscus
flower that'll be honest isn't totally there until you get the a bite of these little almost like
raisins but Hibiscus flower pieces of sweet and dried fruit once you get a bite of that then you
can taste it otherwise it's just like delicious pastry it's really good though well that's a
wrap we hope you enjoyed our video here in Morelia this beautiful art we wanted to make sure that we
finished at this beautiful art and we also want to like talk about safety in terms of the time that
we've been here so far I think that it's there's some like issues with safety we might not dig
into them too much with a very time like with the short amount of time they were here but I think uh
more than anything it's pretty common you know you got to keep your street smart you got to make sure
that you know you walking around it's like any any City I don't feel any more unsafe here than I do
walking around the streets of Chicago for example so it's it's any place that you want to make sure
you watch your things you don't want to leave anything unattended I personally don't feel too
comfortable walking around alone especially not at night so it's just things like that you don't we
haven't seen anything bad happen we've been here for a few weeks and we've felt totally fine here
we in fact we've had some of the best times in the last few weeks and without incidents so even
though the news talks a lot about the danger in the state of Michoacan a lot of that is not
in Morelia so if you're thinking about visiting Morelia at least and from our experience we can
tell you that we felt perfectly fine and had an incredible time here and if you happen to be from
the state of Michigan or have visited Michoacan leave your thoughts below like what do you think
in terms of our safety would you come I know people who are from here and haven't been back
in a long long time because they're afraid of safety issues which I totally understand
but like Kevin said street smarts not flashing jewelry you know regular stuff honestly it's not
not that bad here it's particularly in morelia I wouldn't say the same thing about the other
areas other areas in the state of Michigan has so many beautiful places outside of Morelia and
it varies from place to place so yeah that's just our take would we live here uh maybe we
don't know yet I think we gotta dig in deeper inside I think yeah I love the city especially
all the arts and culture here food oh my God like astronomy the bread and everything so but the the
say not being totally safe I mean what part of the world is totally safe right but safety is
a concern I think I would have to spend some more time here to really get a real feel for the safety
but as a visitor as a tourist I think I felt totally fine we hope you enjoyed our videos ciao
it's El calzado Antonio
but here's the interesting part the word Michigan
is from the ojibowa Native American language which means what does it mean