Nuevo Casas Grandes

Northern Chihuahua city near Paquimé, a major pre-Columbian archaeological site and UNESCO landmark.

Nuevo Casas Grandes is a small city in the northwestern corner of Chihuahua state, set on a broad plain between the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Sonoran Desert. Most people who make it here come for one reason: the archaeological zone of Paquimé, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most important pre-Columbian settlement in northern Mexico. The ruins date from around 900–1400 CE and show a sophisticated urban culture — multi-storey adobe buildings, a sophisticated water system, and a ceramic tradition that the region's craftsmen still draw on today.

The ceramics connection is very much alive. The nearby village of Mata Ortiz has become internationally known for its hand-built, hand-painted pottery, a tradition revived by Juan Quezada in the 1970s from studying Paquimé shards. You can visit potters at work in their homes and buy pieces directly. The Galería Casa Grandes in town teaches and sells the same technique. Alongside Paquimé is the Cueva de la Olla, another archaeological site with ancient tombs and rock art, a few hours' drive away.

The city itself is functional rather than scenic — a base for the surrounding attractions rather than a destination in its own right. The Sierra Madre to the west offers hiking and pine-oak forest. Several Mormon colonies nearby, including Colonia Juárez and Colonia Dublán, are an odd but genuinely interesting counterpoint: communities of English-speaking descendants of nineteenth-century settlers who still farm the desert with notable success. Nuevo Casas Grandes is connected to Ciudad Juárez by highway, about four hours north.

Guide

Bars and Cafes in Nuevo Casas Grandes

Nuevo Casas Grandes is a sleepy city situated on the San Miguel River in the state of Chihuahua and is famous for its Nuevo Casas Grandes bars and cafés. Other that its bars and cafes, Nuevo Casas Grandes also is famous for the varied historical and archaeological attractions present in and around the city. The place is also famous for its proximity to the potter village and the mysterious ancient ruins of Paquime. The city is surrounded by several orchards, adding to its charm. Given its proximity to several famous tourist attractions, Nuevo Casa Grandes has several tourists visiting all around the year. Given below are some of the Nuevo Casas Grandes Bars and Cafés.

Las Guacamayas B&B

The Las Guacamayas B&B, apart from providing great accommodations to the tourists traveling to Nuevo Casa Grandes, is a great cafe that is nestled on the edge of the small Casas Grandes village. Situated just few minutes away from Nuevo Casa Grandes, this place offers its guests everything that they need, from accommodations in their beautiful and charming 11 rooms to a lovely garden where guests can relax with their coffee. There is also a spacious kitchen where the breakfast is served. The Las Guacamayas B&B has been built mimicking the techniques used by the inhabitants of the old town on Paquime. Aside from enjoying your cup of coffee, you can also shop at the beautiful gallery that sells some of the best handicrafts in that area.

Dino’s Pizza

Dino’s Pizza is another famous pizza joint and a café in Nuevo Casa Grande, offering some of the best pizzas in the city. The place is neat and clean and the staff is friendly. Dino’s Pizza is famous for its schezuan style dishes and the lovely fresh strong coffee that they serve. On your visit here, you can see men in cowboy hats always lingering here for the string fresh coffee.

**Hotel Pinon **

Hotel Pinon is another option available for tourists visiting Nuevo Casas Grandes. The hotel, apart from its restaurant, also has a bar which has a really cozy and warm ambiance. This is the right place to be after a long day out exploring the neighboring areas around the city. The bar offers some of the best authentic Mexican drinks that you can enjoy. If you are visiting this place on the weekends, then you can enjoy some great Mexican food with some wonderful and melodious Mexican music. There is a live band that performs in the hotel premises during the weekends.

Guide

Day Trips in Nuevo Casas Grandes

There are a couple of Nuevo Casas Grandes day trips that any willing traveler can embark on, in order to further explore the area around the city. With a car, there is quite a lot to do and discover, particularly hidden parts of Mexico that the country is not known for.

Colonia Dublán

The Colonia Dublán is technically a part of the municipality of Nuevo Casas Grandes, but it operates in such a manner that it seems like it is entirely self-sufficient. The town is a Mormon colony, and is one of the few surviving Mormon colonies in Mexico. This is an interesting place to visit for tourists who wish to see a different side of Mexico. The Mormon settlers here speak an entirely different language, with Spanish as their second language. Many of these settlers are surprisingly not descendants of the original settlers, but Mexican converts, so conversing in Spanish is not a problem – just do not expect any communication in English!

The colony is grows their own fruit and vegetables, and have their own farms, so the produce in the place is wonderfully fresh. Chilies, peaches and wheat are some of the many things that are grown here, so be sure to walk through the fields to see what is being grown during that season. It is a good chance to speak with the people living in the isolated community, and to understand the calmness of their mindset and contentment with their lives.

Sierra Madre Occidental****

The Sierra Madre Occidental is the main mountain range in the region surrounding Nueva Casas Grandes, and stretches about 1500 kilometers from Arizona into Mexico. The range surrounding the city of Nuevo Casas Grandes is located only about a 20 minutes drive away from the city, and leads any tourist into the natural setting that Mexico is not usually known for. With a hilly terrain, hiking can be done, but the highlight of the place is hardly the hiking and trekking around. Instead, take the time to smell the flowers and listen to the call of the birds – literally. The place is known among academics and scientists for its rich diversity of species, particularly of the plants species. The range is known for its pine-oak forests. Those willing to venture a little further will also find that indigenous tribes call this place home – there are about five different groups living within the range at different parts of it.

Guide

Eating Out in Nuevo Casas Grandes

Nuevo Casas Grandes restaurants feed your hungry stomach with a variety of Mexican and other foreign cuisines. More often, the best restaurants around can be found in Juarez y Minerva. Once you are there, you will always be full. Some of the restaurants in Nuevo Casas Grandes are guaranteed to give you the best and quality food service since they have been in the food industry business for a long time.

Algremy

Algremy is a restaurant in Nuevo Casas Grandes that serves delicious dishes. This restaurant makes sure that the food they cook is made from fresh ingredients. These dishes are served to your table with a very nice presentation. If you are looking for good food at a low price, Algremy is the restaurant you are looking for. When it comes to service, this restaurant is among the best. Their restaurant staff is efficient and welcoming. Plus, they have a very clean working area.

Tortas Chuchy

Tortas Chuchy’s specialty is a wide selection of the tastiest tortas in town. Chuchy has been the owner of this restaurant for 30 years. This restaurant provides a combination of snacks that suits your budget. The price range in this eating place is relatively low compared to other restaurants in Nuevo Casas Grandes.

Constantino Restaurant

Constantino Restaurant is situated at the corner of the main plaza in Juarez y Minerva. It has been delivering delectable dishes for more than fifty years. The restaurant started to operate in the year 1954. With the long time spent in the food industry business, you can really say that this restaurant offers one of the best and most excellent food and service, for this restaurant would not have run for as long a time if they are not providing quality food and service.

Dinno’s Pizza

Dinno’s Pizza is an eatery located in Constitution y Minerva. It offers flavorful pizzas and delectable breakfast buffet. Aside from the tasty pizzas and awesome breakfast meals, they also provide strong coffee. The distinctive taste of their coffee attracts a lot of people in the city, be it tourists or local residents.

Malmedy Restaurant

Malmedy Restaurant is situated in a brick Victorian house. The owner of this restaurant is a Belgian. Therefore, this restaurant serves Belgian cuisine to its costumers. Aside from that, they also prepare pure French or Mexican cuisines or a combination of both to satisfy all types of visitors.

Guide

Getting Around in Nuevo Casas Grandes

The city of Nuevo Casas Grandes in Mexico was one of the first Mexican cities to have a train station, and Nuevo Casas Grandes Transportation is varied from bus to airports.

Bus** **

Buses still remain the most common and reliable form of transport in and out of the city. Perhaps a little dusty and bumpy sometimes, buses are a cheap way to enter Nuevo Casas Grandes. The Nuevo Casas Grandes Bus station has several bus lines using the station as a hub. They are owned by local or international companies. The fare from Phoenix, a popular pick up point, to Nuevo Casas Grande can be as cheap at $16. The majority of buses are kept in good shape. For students looking to stretch their budgets, grabbing a bus from any destination to Nuevo Casas Grande is a wise choice.

**Train **

The train station is what created the town of Nueva Casas Grande. No trip to the city would be complete without a visit. The railroad station was constructed here in the 1870’s and the town subsequently was built around it. Today, the railroad is an excellent way to enter the city and the surrounding locale. For people traveling short distances, this train is a good way to get around, especially for those traveling to the archeological digs and the city of Mata. The new station is located by the bus station, while the older station is between Nueva Casas Grandes and Mata.

Airport

The Paloma Grande Nueva Casas Grandes Airport is a small airport located outside the city. The airport is a small private airport that has few flight domestic flights. For tourists looking to travel by air into the area, they will have to make a connecting from another major city like the Tijuana Airport or Mexico City. The airport mostly deals with charter flights. For business travelers, this airport is ideal for traveling to Nueva Casas Grandas for a brief stop, as parts of the Mexican roadway are still not quite developed. For people on a time crunch, this airport is a good choice instead of a bus or train that might make several stops depending on the origin location. There is security onsite for the train, as the guards live on site. The fee is $20 per night, but the owner of the plane will have peace of mind.

Guide

Shopping in Nuevo Casas Grandes

The state of Chihuahua in Mexico is in the northern and central-eastern portion of the country, and people oftentimes travel to the upper reaches of this state to visit the historic town of Nuevo Casas Grandes; shopping, sightseeing and much more await at this scenic destination. The population of Nuevo Casas Grandes is under 100,000, although this does not typically include the Mennonite and Mormon communities that live outside of the city borders. Read on for a brief overview of the best shopping experiences to find in the Mexican city of Nuevo Casas Grandes.

Casas Grandes

A few miles southwest of the city proper is a great historical and archaeological reservoir of sites that has been collectively termed Casas Grandes. This area has provided many clues into the nature of ancient societies that lived in the area. A visit to Casas Grandes will reward the traveler with both a historical perspective and shopping opportunities. There are street vendors and others selling arts, crafts and small souvenirs around the site of Casas Grandes. Be sure to barter in order to get the best prices on all goods in this area.

Mennonite Community

The Mennonite community outside of the border of Nuevo Casas Grandes thrives by selling fruits and vegetables. The orchards and farms that they keep are among the finest in this part of Mexico, and many travelers enjoy purchasing fresh foods from the Mennonites. This is both an opportunity to support a unique culture and society as well as a chance to learn about the history of the region around Nuevos Casas Grandes too.

Downtown

While the central area in Nuevo Casas Grandes is not large, it does provide you with ample opportunities to purchase a variety of goods. These include general goods and products that you may need for your stay or for your travels, but you can also find unique souvenirs, many of which are hand crafted and unique. Nuevo Casas Grandes does not have any major shopping centers or luxury stores, so it's best to focus your shopping efforts on locally produced art pieces and other wares of this type.

Nuevo Casas Grandes is a central Mexican city with plenty of opportunities for cultural study and exploration, including a few very good and inexpensive shopping opportunities as well. Ask the Mexican tourism board for additional assistance.

Guide

Things to Do in Nuevo Casas Grandes

Located in the province of Chihuahua, the town of Nuevo Casas Grandes is one of historical and archaeological significance to Mexico. There is much to see and do here, and here are some Nuevo Casas Grandes Things to Do.

See the Casas Grandes

Standing as one of Mexico’s most important archaeological sites, the Casas Grandes, or Great Houses in Spanish, is located just five km outside of the town itself. The ruins include some of the best preserved pottery of the Spanish times, with its museum reflecting the lifestyles of the time in which the people lived. Long home to some of Mexico’s indigenous peoples, the Casas Grandes itself is a stone-hewn structure, existing as clusters of houses that may have housed up to 2500 people in the 14th century. The structure itself is complex, consisting of a complete sewage system, communal and dining areas, as well as multiple exits and entrances that served to be a way of circumventing enemy attacks or natural disasters.

Head to Mata Ortiz

Another of the city’s very famous landmarks, the town of Mata Ortiz is located near the ruins of the Casas Grandes – for a good reason as well, considering how the township is known for its pottery and art. The pottery and art forms here have been inspired by the pottery found in the ruins of the Casas Grandes, but many of these have a modern twist on them, showing off the artists’ creativity in their products. Many of these pieces have gone on exhibition in many parts of the world, and the potters of Mata Ortiz have been internationally acclaimed to have combined the traditional indigenous art forms with modern interpretations. Tourists are welcome to buy some of the pieces here as display pieces for homes, or just for collector purposes.

Visit the Mormon Community

In a surprising mix, the town of Nuevo Casas Grandes is also home to a large Mormon community. Often found on the outskirts of the town, these people speak Spanish as their second language and live in isolated, self-sufficient communities away from the mainstream settlements found within the city itself. As much as they are isolated, many of these communities welcome visitors in their farms and orchards. Drive up to these communities for an afternoon, and enjoy their warm hospitality as they bring tourists around their farming areas or to see their livestock.

Guide

When to Go in Nuevo Casas Grandes

When visiting Nuevo Casas Grandes, when to go is an important choice to consider. Founded in the 1870s, Nuevo Casas Grandes is located in the northwestern part of the Mexican state of Chiuaua along the Casas Grandes River. It borrowed its name from another town called Casas Grandes, about a mile away. It is an area that is known for its archeological and historical history. Below are descriptions of ideal times to visit this historic community.

Travel Warnings

The recent attacks on US citizens have prompted the US Embassy in Mexico to issue a warning to Americans while traveling in certain parts of Mexico, including the state of Chiuaua. Use extreme caution and delay any unnecessary travel in some parts of Durango, Coahuila, and Chiuaua.

Weather

Nuevo Casas Grandes has a dessert-like climate. The hottest months are June and July, while the coolest is December. Even at its coolest, it is comfortable in the 50s. Nights, however, can get a little the cold side, depending on the time of year.

Hurricane season lasts from June to November. Although Nuevo Casas Grandes is inland, it is a good idea to be aware of where any potential hurricane threats might be located, because violent storms can often occur inland as a result of hurricanes.

Festivals

July is an excellent time to visit if you want to attend the international mountain biking festival (festival internacional de ciclismo de montaña) that takes place in breathtaking Copper Canyon on July 9th and 10th. It is the best time of year for adventure seekers and athletes to attend. Activities include road races, down hill races, guided rides, and some kids activities.

Also taking place in the Casas Grande region during the month of July is the Festival Nueva Paquime, which takes place July 18th through the 26th. It is one of the most prestigious archeological sites in North Mexico. The festival is about celebrating the Paquime culture. Many cultural events will take place, including handmade crafts, poetry readings, and concerts.

High Season vs Low Season

During summer months and certain holidays, Mexicans like to travel. Due their traveling habits, you may find that hotels are crowded during these times. It might be a good idea to avoid visiting during these times, or to book your room in advance. Being a Catholic area, Nuevo Casas Grandes's most popular holidays are Christmas and Easter.