Alley of Romance

The old town of Morelia features emblematic spaces that are sometimes found almost around the corner.

One of these cases can be seen when you head towards the eastern part of the centre, next to the Las Tarascas fountain: it is the Callejón del Romance, the favourite place for many couples to reaffirm their love.

It is a short corridor that goes from the tourist shops of the San Lucas market and the neuralgic movement of Madero Avenue, to the relative tranquility of 20 de noviembre Street.

The space is dominated by tourists, walkers and couples, but in its beginnings it was a street where workers from a soap factory lived.

According to historical sources, the origin of the Callejón del Romance in Morelia dates back to the late 19th century, although at that time it was known as “Stock Market Alley” and later “Socialism Alley.”

In the place there were small adobe houses with dirt floors, gabled roofs with beams and shingles along the alley, where families of workers lived and where milk and coal merchants also frequented.

In the mid-sixties of the twentieth century, remodeling work began, adding stone to the facades, with the installation of fountains, street lamps and flower boxes. On September 29, 1965, it was officially given the name Callejón del Romance.

The name “Callejón del Romance” is due to the poet Lucas Ortiz Benítez, a Michoacan writer born in 1904 in Taretan, prose writer, short story writer and poet, whose work addressed themes from the Mexican province and was influenced by Federico García Lorca and Ramón López Velarde. Among other things, he wrote the Romance de mi Ciudad, an octosyllabic poem where the author makes reference to different spaces in Morelia. In fact, you only have to take a walk down the Callejón to see plaques with verses from said work.

The place is also famous for a legend, the one about the love locks, which states that when going to this place with the person you love, you must take with you a red ribbon with each person's name on the corners and a padlock must be placed on one of the walls of the Callejón del Romance and lock it.

According to a myth that has survived for several generations, this will make love last forever.