The small town of Dolores Hidalgo (population 41,000) is situated about 28km/17mi north-west of Atotonilco
This attractive small town is a good, quiet base for visiting livelier Guanajuato and more expensive San Miguel de Allende. The tourist office (main square, T/F418-182 1164) can direct you to places making traditional Talavera tiles (called azulejos) and ceramics, available at very good prices.
The town is most famous as the childhood home of Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the Mexican priest and revolutionary rebel leader, whose famous Grito de Dolores (’Cry of Independence’) in 1810 sparked the movement. His statue stands in the lovely main square, known as the Jardín. On one side of the square is the church of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (1712-1778). Each year the traditional Cry for Independence is given from the atrium of this church (every five years by the president of the republic).
The Iglesia de La Asunción (Puebla y Sonora) has a large tower at one end, a dome at the other, with extensive murals and a tiled floor inside. Two blocks away, at Puebla y Jalisco, is Plaza de los Compositores Dolorenses, with a bandstand. Visit Hidalgo’s house, the Casa de Diezma (officially Museo Casa Hidalgo) (Morelos y Hidalgo, Tue-Sat 1000-1745, Sun 1000-1700, US$4) a beautiful building with a courtyard and wells, memorabilia and one room almost a shrine. The Museo de la Independencia (Zacatecas 6, Fri-Wed 0900-1700, US$1.15) was formerly a jail, but now has displays of striking paintings of the path to Independence.
The Alfarería is where Hidalgo established a school and the town’s first pottery factory. What is remarkable, and very much more evident from the exhibits in this building than from the more glorified representations of Hidalgo in the museum, is just how seriously he took his commitment to the poor. He was a humanitarian to the indigenous people of his parish, teaching those with nothing how to earn a living making and selling pottery. It was, in fact, thanks to him that Dolores Hidalgo remains famous for its pottery to this day.
