Barrio Viejo — also called Barrio Histórico — is the oldest surviving neighbourhood in Tucson, south of the Convention Center. Block after block of low Sonoran-style adobe row houses, mostly nineteenth-century, painted in fiercely saturated colours: cobalt blue next to magenta next to ochre.
In the 1960s urban renewal demolished the northern half of the barrio to build the Convention Center. The rest survives mostly intact and was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Walk the streets between Cushing and 18th, peer over the wrought-iron gates, and stop at El Tiradito, the wishing shrine. Best in late afternoon when the painted walls glow.