Nearby is the Iglesia de San Jose, the second-oldest church in the Western Hemisphere, and across the street, Amadeus serves an excellent lunch. The Pablo Casals Museum, also nearby, recently underwent renovations. The father of the painter, whose smaller, more realistic paintings hang on another wall, says his son also has galleries in Europe and South America. He's so popular, says the father, that all but three of the paintings on view have already been sold. An elegant, multitalented woman named Jan d'Esopo painter, sculptor, grower of orchids, and sometimes chef runs a 22-room hotel, the Gallery Inn, on Norzagaray.
Rooms are different sizes and shapes and on different levels.
It's possible to get lost going from a bedroom to a reading room. In one bedroom without a window, d'Esopo has painted a window with a view. Rooms are decorated with paintings, silkscreens, busts, masks and bas reliefs, all for sale. Down the hill is Cafe Concierto, where proprietor Carli Munoz plays jazz on a grand piano. On Sunday afternoons, sandwiches are served, and musicians from cruise ships, glad to be free of playing passengers' requests, jam with Munoz until they're due back on board in the evening.