Albuquerque travel guide

Top 10 sights in Albuquerque

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1

   Petroglyph National Monument

   A monument stretching twenty-seven kilometres along the West Mesa escarpment, protecting more than 24,000 images carved into the basalt, most of them by Pueblo people between 1300 and 1680. Five extinct volcanoes stand at the western end; the rock is dark from desert varnish, which is what the carvers cut through.

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2. 

   2© Camerafiend at en.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

   San Felipe de Neri Church

   A church of 1793 on the north side of Old Town Plaza, the oldest building in Albuquerque, with adobe walls a metre and a half thick and two wooden towers added in the 1860s. Mass has been said on this site since the town was founded in 1706.

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3. 

   3

   Albuquerque Museum

   The city art and history museum, founded in 1967 near Old Town, holding the largest collection of Spanish colonial artefacts in New Mexico along with New Mexican painting. Its sculpture garden and the four centuries of Albuquerque history downstairs are both free on the first Wednesday.

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   4

   National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

   The national museum of nuclear science and history, chartered by Congress, covering the Manhattan Project — designed a hundred kilometres north at Los Alamos — through the Cold War to reactors and medicine. A B-29, a B-52 and Atlas missiles stand in the nine-acre yard.

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5. 

   5© John Phelan · CC BY-SA 3.0

   New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

   A natural history and science museum of 1986 near Old Town, whose halls run through New Mexico's geological time, including dinosaurs found in the state and a walk-through Ice Age cave. A bronze Pentaceratops and Alamosaurus stand outside.

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   6

   Albuquerque Aquarium

   An aquarium of 1996 in the BioPark, whose displays follow the Rio Grande from the mountains to the Gulf of Mexico, ending in a 1.4-million-litre shark tank. It is the only aquarium in the state, which is what a landlocked desert produces.

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7. 

   7© Eric Ward from Provo, UT, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Albuquerque New Mexico Temple

   A Latter-day Saints temple in Albuquerque, dedicated in 1997, the only one in New Mexico. Its white walls and single spire are set against the Sandia Mountains; only members in good standing enter beyond the lobby.

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8. 

   8© Asaavedra32 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Barelas

   An inner-city neighbourhood immediately south of downtown, bounded by Coal Avenue, the railway and the Rio Grande, which grew around the Santa Fe rail shops. It remains one of the city's oldest Hispanic districts and holds the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

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9. 

   9© en:User:Cburnett · CC BY-SA 3.0

   ABQ BioPark Zoo

   A 26-hectare zoo founded in 1927 as the Rio Grande Zoo, in the cottonwood bosque beside the river, holding about 250 species. Its African elephants, gorillas and a Mexican wolf breeding programme are the main work.

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10. 

    10© Camerafiend · CC BY-SA 3.0

    First Methodist Episcopal Church

    A Methodist church of 1904 in downtown Albuquerque, built in red sandstone in a Romanesque manner, and one of the earliest Protestant congregations in the city — Albuquerque was overwhelmingly Catholic before the railway arrived in 1880.

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1. 

   1© M.Bucka · CC BY-SA 4.0

   San Agustín de la Isleta Mission

   A mission church founded in 1613 at Isleta Pueblo south of Albuquerque, and one of the oldest church buildings in the United States. It was burned in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and rebuilt on the same walls; the pueblo still uses it.

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   2© Cathy from USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

   New Mexico Rattler

   A wooden roller coaster of 2002 at Cliff's Amusement Park, the only wooden coaster in New Mexico, built by Custom Coasters on a compact figure-eight layout. Its structure was later reinforced with steel supports.

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   3© en:User:Camerafiend · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Rio Grande Botanic Garden

   A fifteen-hectare botanic garden of 1996 beside the Rio Grande, with a glass conservatory divided between Mediterranean and desert climates, a Japanese garden and a walled Spanish-Moorish garden. It shares an entrance with the aquarium.

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   4© Camerafiend · CC BY 4.0

   Cathedral Church of St. John

   The Episcopal cathedral of the Rio Grande diocese, whose congregation dates from 1881 and whose stone building went up in stages from 1882. It stands on Silver Avenue downtown and runs a large feeding programme from the undercroft.

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   5© John Phelan · CC BY 3.0

   Lobo Theater

   A cinema of 1938 on Central Avenue, the old Route 66, built in Pueblo Deco — an Albuquerque style mixing Art Deco massing with Pueblo detail. It was a church for years and now works as a music and event venue.

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   6© Mike Pedroncelli · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Rio Grande Nature Center State Park

   A 38-hectare state park and urban wildlife preserve established in 1982 on the Rio Grande, protecting cottonwood bosque and a pond. Sandhill cranes and Canada geese winter here, watched from a half-buried observation room with a glass wall at water level.

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   7© John Phelan · CC BY 3.0

   Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church

   An adobe church built in 1870 in the vernacular manner of the Rio Grande valley, with the thick walls and plain parapet of the old New Mexican mission churches. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

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8. 

   8© Camerafiend · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Hoffmantown Baptist Church

   A Baptist church in the Northeast Heights, whose congregation dates from the late 1940s and whose present building of 1965 is in the New Formalist style. It grew with the postwar suburbs on the mesa above the old city.

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   9© John Phelan · CC BY 3.0

   University of New Mexico Arboretum

   A nationally accredited arboretum covering the whole University of New Mexico campus, with about 320 species chosen to survive at 1,600 metres in a desert climate. The campus itself is built in the Pueblo Revival style John Gaw Meem set out in the 1930s.

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