Santa Fe Plaza is mostly galleries and shopping, A LOT of shopping. Don't miss San Miguel, the oldest church in the US as well as the adjacent oldest house in the US, a short walk from the plaza. I enjoyed the Georgia O'Keefe Museum, but admission is steep at $22 (in my opinion). San Francisco Bar & Grill had delicious, reasonably priced food.

Many shops and restaurants surround the green square. Definitely go off the square to the other streets for beautiful architecture, more shops and restaurants. On weekends, Native Americans sell their lovely jewelry, blankets etc under the cover next to the Palace of the Governors. Don’t miss the cathedral a few blocks away. We were a bit disappointed when we went inside the Palace of Governors. It was almost empty. Expected more inside. Parking is insane. There is a parking garage at La Fonda Hotel. Glad we walked from our hotel.

My family spent a total of two hours in the plaza area on a Saturday. We found street parking two blocks away. We visited the basilica, Loretto Chapel, and the plaza shops and vendors in this two hours. We enjoyed it, and we were done with everything in a couple Of hours.

Great area to visit, look around, eat, just walk around. Free parking Sundays, and pretty crowded, but if you go half a block easy to find parking on the side of the road. Good food options, even though it was 106 outside, being dry, didn’t feel hot walking around.

Our second time visiting The Santa Fe Plaza and we enjoyed our day there as a family. Ate lunch at The Shed, visited St Francis Cathedral and The Loretto Chapel, both are very beautiful and loved hearing the story behind The Loretto Chapel and the spiral staircase. You do have to pay to go inside The Loretto Chapel because it’s privately owned now and is a museum but the you walk inside and it’s like you stepped back in time. They have taken very good care of it and the gift shop has plenty of souvenirs and Catholic items and books to choose from. Also, while in the Plaza, do yourself a favor and find/visit The San Miguel Mission Church. It’s really pretty as well and at the Alter, they have see through glass area where you can actually see the original steps that led into the church many years ago.

We visited The Plaza on a beautiful, sunny morning and it was great. Pretty, historic, and safe feeling. We enjoyed walking around and chatting with the Native Americans that were selling jewelry and crafts. After a nice long visit at the museum and lunch, we walked some more and did some shopping. Mostly it was a good experience and we enjoyed several of the shops. Traffic had picked up in the afternoon and it was much noisier and crowded. We definitely enjoyed the visit, shopping, scenery, and history, but the best parts for us were the visits to the museum, historic attractions, and shops that were off on side streets or away from central area. We didn't visit The Plaza at night and I'm not sure that we would feel safe there like we did at the restaurants and other places that were just outside of the central plaza.