For Spanish There's an exciting new gift and jewelry store in the Old Port, Sol de Oro, or Golden Sun. It's located next to Thrifty Ice Cream.
From the outside the building is quite impressive. It's painted a forest green against which the golden ceramic sun which serves as a logo shows up beautifully. The facade of three arches shades the interior, which explodes with beauty and brilliance as you enter. I wanted to look everywhere at once--there were so many elegantly crafted articles for sale. I walked around looking at the various display cases and oohing and aahing (saying "ooh" and "aah") as my eye was caught by one gorgeous item after another.
The first thing I noticed was a silver pin in the shape of an angel fish, with the stripes represented by thin strips of metal with spaces between. My description doesn't begin to catch its quality. It was striking.
Among the many memorable items I saw were a silver elephant pendant with alternate rough and shiny surfaces, some etched glass bowls, a pewter platter ornamented with figures of sea shells, starfish, snails, and other marine life. There were many other beautiful platters, some in the shape of fish, some with floral reliefs, some with animals and other designs. One that I particularly liked had a sun with a crescent moon superimposed on it.
Another eye-catcher was a little statuette of 3 owls in mother-of pearl (nacre). An openwork trivet with a design of daisies made me think of my great aunt who collected trivets. I could go on and on--but let me move to the jewelry. In addition to an array of silver and gold earrings, rings, bracelets, and chains, there were charms, pendants, gorgeous belt buckles in silver and gold and silver and turquoise. To help the prospective purchaser keep these art objects organized and protected, Sol de Oro also sells jewel boxes made of wood, mother-of-pearl, and ceramic.
Now we come to the leather goods. Sol de Oro has a number of leather coats and jackets in various styles, elegant looking purses and wallets of tooled leather in Mexican designs.
This shop is owned by Sra. Minerva Nunez de Piquero. Unfortunately she was out of town, so we didn't get to speak to her, but we talked to her assistant, a charming young woman named Susette Palacio. I defiinitely want to return to this shop again and again.
