GUANAJUATO, MEXICO -- 4

CASA ZUNIGA


The view from Casa Zuniga is so perfect, they could charge $10 bucks to outsiders just to watch the sunrise and sunset over the magnificent colonial city of Guanajuato...which covers every hillside and rolls down into the valley below Casa Z.

Just about every room at the Casa features a window with a million dollar view. The ones that cost a few bucks more have fabulous patios -- but the grounds have lots of common areas for spectacular viewing, so even a piker can take pictures like a pro from many vantage points.

Guanajuato gets rain in the summer, but the rest of the year it is pretty dry.

The summer is like Los Angeles, but without the traffic and smog.

I went in November and the days were in the mid 70s and the nights got down around 40 degrees.

That was cold to my Miami bones, but perfect weather for those from just about anywhere else in North America.

Casa Zuniga has fans, not air conditioners.

With all the breezes that blow through it, I can't imagine it getting too hot even midday in the summer when the temps could reach the high 80s.

Casa Z does not have central or individual heating. No place in Guanajuato does.

My room had about 6 layers of sheets, blankets, comforters, etc., so I never got cold.

But Rick, remembering my trepidation about near freezing night temps in an email I zapped a month before booking.

I came back up town to Casa Z one frigid evening to find a space heater purchased just for me and set up in the room.

Would a Ritz Carlton go to this length for a guest paying 10 times what I did at Casa Z?

I doubt it.