Customer Reviews
What You'll Get
History is like Frankenstein's monster; all it takes to make it come alive is the right education, a large body of artifacts exhumed from the earth, and an electrical storm. Learn from the past with today's Groupon: for $8, you get two one-day adult tickets to select festivals at El Rancho de las Golondrinas museum in Santa Fe (a $16 value). This Groupon is valid at the Herb & Lavender Fair on Saturday and Sunday, July 23 and 24; the Summer Festival on Saturday and Sunday, August 6 and 7; and Survival: New Mexico on Saturday and Sunday, August 13 and 14. All festivals are scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Children under the age of 13 are admitted for free when accompanied by an adult.
El Rancho de las Golondrinas’ July and August festivals invite guests into a series of sun-soaked summer-celebrating activities. Traipsing through the 18th-century structures that dot the 200-acre ranch, Herb & Lavender Fair attendees browse vendors' floral wares, which include handmade lavender soaps, lotions, and jewelry. Embark on a guided exploration of the museum's gardens, or learn to bake bread and tortillas, weave lavender wands, and sculpt presidential bay-leaf busts. The Summer Festival centers on displays by real-life mountain inhabitants, who demonstrate survival skills such as tepee-building, fashioning hide garments, and shearing sheep into the hairstyles of their favorite punk musicians. Guests also soak up factual historical yarns and witness the equine mastery and training-wheel-free maneuvers of skilled horseback riders as they pace Peruvian Paso steeds.
Survival: New Mexico offers a taste of the colonial Spanish settlers' life—building adobe bricks, constructing wilderness shelters, and creating a phone tree to warn of upcoming whooping-cough outbreaks. Guest speakers guide visitors through the process of carving their own dart-hurling weapons and test the results on an archery range. Learn healing techniques employing Southwestern medicinal herbs, as well as modern wilderness first aid and fire-lassoing tips taught by local Red Cross staff. Museum guides also comfort homesick time travelers by leading tours through a historical Spanish mill, and a range of kid-friendly crafts regale diminutive guests.
The Fine Print
Promotional value expires Aug 15, 2011. Amount paid never expires. Redeem starting 7/23/11. Valid only for a single event. May buy multiple to attend all events. Must show valid ID matching name on Groupon at El Rancho de las Golondrinas. Must provide first and last name at checkout. Refundable only on day of purchase. Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.
About El Rancho de las Golondrinas
In the 18th and 19th centuries, visitors would stop to rest at the historic El Rancho de las Golondrinas as they began or ended their long journeys along the royal road that stretched between Santa Fe and Mexico City. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Matt Damon, Salma Hayek, Val Kilmer, and the cast and crew of some 30 films used the ranch's 200 scenic acres and 34 historic structures as backdrops to their movies and personalized birthday cards. With preserved and restored villages dating back to the early 1700s sloping through a rural farming valley, the grounds collapse time, bringing the past to the present and the present to the past.
Today, guests wander this living history museum to explore how colonial and frontier life was lived the Southwest. During a self-guided tour, visitors pick up or download a map of the ranch before weaving through a snapshot of history brought to life by villagers clothed in the styles of the time. Feet patter past a molasses mill, a blacksmith shop, and defensive towers where guards kept watch on the horizon and coordinated messages for passing UFOs. With a reservation, docents will lead you through the trails that cut through a landscape dotted with goats, sheep, burros, and horses, fostering an understanding of the culture and arts of historic New Mexico.