Читать книгу Walking Albuquerque - Stephen Ausherman - Страница 9

INTRODUCTION

“Even for Albuquerque, this is pretty Albuquerque.”

—Kirk Douglas, Ace in the Hole

People have walked in this area for the past 12,000 years. The earliest established walking routes date back at least a thousand years. For nearly two centuries following its founding, the Villa de Alburquerque was, by lack of choice, a pedestrian town.

The City of Albuquerque mushroomed in response to the AT&SF Railroad, Route 66, and Kirtland Air Force Base. With so much of its early industry catering to planes, trains, and automobiles, Albuquerque didn’t exactly develop as a perambulator’s paradise. However, that doesn’t mean the art of walking has met its demise here. Far from it. A surge in renovations and redevelopment projects is currently ushering the city into a walking (and bicycling) renaissance.

Yet there’s never been a shortage of places to explore on foot, and each step brings you that much closer to the best aspects of the city’s richly diverse culture. Cuisine features prominently into many routes where restaurants tempt you with aromas both exotic and native. Art is often quickly accessible not just in nearby galleries and museums but also outdoors. With hundreds of public artworks—sculptures, murals, mosaics—the city is essentially a museum without ceilings. And with nearly 3,000 square feet of parkland per person, Burqueños (Albuquerqueans) have more open space than any other city dwellers in America. And plenty of sunny days to enjoy it. On average, Albuquerque basks in 310 days of sunshine per year.

A walk just about anywhere in this multifaceted town reveals layers of its history, which exceeds 300 years. These 30 walks delve into the city’s past and ponder its future, all the while encouraging you to go out now and experience its quirky nuances at a leisurely pace.

One of the greatest challenges in writing this book was predicting what readers might find absent from or added to any given route. For updates and other useful bits of information, visit restlesstribes.com/walq.