I did enjoy walking around the San Xavier del Bac Mission and its grounds, it was very interesting.andnbsp;

Mission San Xavier del Bac.

On our visit, it was a very hot day, but I also managed to climb the small hill next to the Mission to get a better panoramic view of the Mission and surrounding area. Outside, the Mission had a nice garden with many desert animals hiding in the garden's shade. The inside of the Mission was beautifully decorated and very ornate.

History.

Mission San Xavier del Bac is a historic Spanish Catholic mission located about 10 miles south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham San Xavier Indian Reservation. It was founded in 1692 by Padre Eusebio Kino and named for a pioneering Christian missionary and co-founder of the Society of Jesus, Francis Xavier. In 1700, construction began on a church near the current Mission. It served the community until razed by Apaches in 1770.

Today's Mission was built between 1783 and 1797 and is the oldest European structure in Arizona. Widely considered the finest example of Spanish Colonial architecture in the United States, it hosts 200,000 visitors annually.

The site is also known as the 'place where the water appears', as there were once natural springs there. The Santa Cruz River, which now runs only part of the year, is also nearby. The Mission is situated in the centre of a centuries-old Indian settlement of the Tohono O’odham (formerly known as Papago) along the banks of the Santa Cruz River.