Taos Pueblo is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most remarkable place in the Taos area. The ancient complex — two large multi-storied adobe buildings facing each other across a small stream — has been continuously inhabited for at least a thousand years, and members of the Tiwa-speaking tribe still live in the traditional structures without electricity or running water.
Visitors are welcome (there is an entry fee, and an additional charge for photography), and walking through the pueblo grounds gives a sense of a community that has maintained its traditions despite centuries of pressure. The small adobe church, built around 1850 on the ruins of an earlier mission, is visually dramatic against the mountains behind it. Allow at least two hours; the distance from Taos proper is about 4 kilometres north.