Parting Albuquerque With Sorrow : City is thriving with new galleries, festivals and restaurants.

I have always run out of time in the ancient adobe capital of Santa Fe, N.M.

No matter the length of my visit, I yearn for another day to wander through art galleries and along crooked lanes shaded by cottonwood trees. I wish for another taste--or two--of native New Mexico cuisine in romantic settings such as the restaurant La Tertulia, next to the Guadalupe church.

I always leave Santa Fe with regret.

One thing that I have always enjoyed about the sprawling city of Albuquerque, an hour’s drive to the south, was that I suffered no such wrenching feelings. In Albuquerque, the choices seemed simpler. The art scene was comparatively minimal. There was always time to check out the new museum or the new gallery or to try the carne adobada burrito at a neighborhood cafe near the train depot.

Well, you can kiss those days adios.

I have just left Albuquerque with abundant regrets--with new galleries unseen and museum exhibits undiscovered and a fistful of tempting restaurants that remain only hearsay.

I had to leave as costumed mariachis and flower-bedecked horses were preening for a graceful parade around the Old Town Plaza to mark the anniversary of this city, founded in 1706. I left without getting to stay at the Casas de Suenos, a historic garden compound near Old Town, where 12 rooms and casitas have Southwestern furnishings.

I missed the dances and storytelling of the fifth-annual American Indian week at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. (The center, on 12th Street Northwest, is a smart place for beginning collectors to learn about pueblo crafts; the wares in the extensive gift shop are authentic, the clerks knowledgeable.)

And now I am missing the Albuquerque Festival of the Arts, a city-wide bash of history, culture, food, music and dance that ends next Sunday. The Albuquerque airport is welcoming travelers with roving guitarists and demonstrations of pottery making and silk-screening.

But I did get to stroll through Old Town on a weekday morning in April. The sun glinted on the twin spires of the church San Felipe de Neri; the breeze was fresh and steady. Only a few visitors and locals sat on the wrought-iron benches in the plaza.

I wandered into the Covered Wagon shop, whose front rooms display Southwest souvenirs and contemporary turquoise-and-silver jewelry, and whose around-a-corner back room contains a stunning trove of rare Indian rugs, pottery, kachinas and baskets. On a winter day I like to sit by the hearth in that quiet chamber and listen to the distant drums of my imagination.

As usual I could not resist the Chili Pepper Emporium, where the fiery red chile is sold in dozens of forms: fresh, dried, cooked into jelly, appliqued on aprons, turned into ceramic refrigerator magnets, printed on note pads, strung up as Christmas lights.

Along Romero Street, which flanks the plaza, I admired the tiles and contemporary weavings at Aceves Basket and Rug Shop, and the splendid Navajo pawn jewelry at the Adobe Gallery.

For a while, officials removed the vendors who spread their wares under the portal by the plaza, but now they are back.

“Tourists missed the scene,” a local told me. “Many things sold there are handmade by Indian crafts people, but you can’t always be sure. It’s no place to invest a lot.”

By midday I needed refreshment--something light and preferably to be enjoyed outdoors. A woman at the tourist information booth pointed toward a patio near the church. “That’s where we go now,” she said. Out front was a sign: Zane Graze.

I decided on a made-to-order Swiss cheese on rye--with sliced green chiles--and carried my sandwich to a table in the shade of a willow tree. With a book and some newspaper clippings to scan, I spent a pleasant half-hour or so preparing for an interview.

The most astonishing part of this brief journey to New Mexico was that, for the first time, I visited Albuquerque without going to Santa Fe.

I would rather see both . . . and stay longer.