New Mexico Sightseeing

• Explore history at the Coronado State Monument (website: www.nmmonuments.org), where Spanish explorer Coronado and his men stayed while searching for the seven cities of gold.

• Visit the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (website: www.indianpueblo.org), tracing the history of the state's 19 Native American Pueblos. See exhibits featuring contemporary works by pueblo artists and catch seasonal performances of traditional dances.

• Tour the southwestern town of Santa Fe, the ‘City of the Holy Faith', with its adobe-style buildings and quaint town square filled with galleries, Native American crafts and jewellery. The oldest and highest capital in the country, it boasts more than 150 art galleries.

• Explore Santa Fe's Museum of New Mexico (website: www.museumofnewmexico.org) and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian (website: www.wheelwright.org), which display jewellery, weavings, pottery and paintings of Native American cultures.

• Travel the Santa Fe Trail (website: www.nps.gov/safe) and visit the San Miguel Mission, one of the oldest churches in the country, and Loretto Chapel (website: www.lorettochapel.com), with its ‘Miraculous Stairway', so called because elements of its design baffle experts to this day.

• Rediscover the Old West in Taos at the home of 19th-century scout, Kit Carson. When Carson's brother-in-law and governor of New Mexico Territory was murdered in a nearby house, the governor's wife and children escaped by digging through the wall of their adobe home using kitchen utensils.

• Visit the largest Indian reservation in the United States, now home for the Navajo. The Navajo are noted for their beautiful silver and turquoise jewellery, sand paintings and other crafts (website: www.discovernavajo.com).

See Contact Addresses for further tourist information.