OAXACA, Mexico – Poinsettias carpet the carefully tended gardens of Oaxaca’s arch-ringed main plaza, the scent of coffee and mole sauce, two of Oaxaca’s specialties.

More visitors to Oaxaca will find a less crowded city with more local flavor than it had before the 2006 political uprising. There are fewer tourists, more open tables at restaurants ringing the square, and a new program that closes off the streets around the main plaza to create a pedestrian mall on the weekends.

“It is really pretty. It has changed so much,” said Alfredo Santiago, a businessman on vacation from a Mexico City suburb who was hanging out with his son, listening to music in the flower bedecked main square in early January. “The truth is, we wouldn’t have come last year, because of the problems, but now you can even bring kids, the family.”