Taos is a small town with a big reputation among painters, writers and people who came for a visit and stayed. It lies at about 7,000 feet on a high plateau at the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico, with the dark ridge of the range rising to the east and the dry sagebrush plain dropping to the Rio Grande gorge to the west. The light is extraordinary, clear and golden, and early in the twentieth century it drew a group of artists, the Taos Society of Artists, who painted the landscape and the people. D. H. Lawrence also lived near here for a time in the 1920s, and his ranch can be visited.
Four kilometres north of the plaza, Taos Pueblo has been inhabited for about a thousand years, and its multi-storey adobe buildings, set in front of Taos Mountain, are among the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America. UNESCO listed it in 1992. Residents still live in the pueblo, and visitors are welcome at certain times, with rules about photography and respect, so check before you go. Taos also has a bridge across the Rio Grande gorge, completed in 1965 and about 650 feet, nearly 200 metres, above the river, which gives dizzying views.
The Enchanted Circle is a loop of about 84 miles that runs from Taos north to Questa, east to Red River, over to Eagle Nest and Angel Fire and back, circling Wheeler Peak, the highest mountain in New Mexico at 13,161 feet. The road is smooth, with long, flowing bends through forests of pine and aspen, high alpine meadows and old mining villages. Summer is the busy season, with cool mountain air and afternoon thunderstorms, and autumn, when the aspens turn gold, is spectacular. Snow can close higher parts of the road in winter.
Fuel stations, repair shops and restaurants are easy to find in Taos, which has about five and a half thousand people. The food is distinctly New Mexican, with green and red chilli on almost everything, and the smell of piñon wood smoke drifts through the streets on cool evenings. The plaza is a good place to sit and watch the day go by.