Rather than spend Christmas in Sacramento we (Nancy, Erica, Joe and Arden) decided to spend Christmas in Mexico. We spent 4 days in Mexico City and then 4 days on the coast in Zihuatanejo. As usual we all traveled different routes, myself arriving late on Saturday night from London via Houston. A bit of a long trip but I survived.
For the first couple of nights we were in a hotel in the La Condesa area of Mexico City. A nice neighborhood to the south west of the old part of town (Centro Historico).
After a much needed sleep, the others were going out to Teotihuacan to visit the pyramids there. As I had visited the site a few years earlier and as it is quite a drive out of the city, I decided not to go and stayed back in the city. I wanted to visit the Anthropology and Art Museums on the edge of Chapultepec Park which was quite nearby our hotel.
The La Condesa neighborhood is quite nice and it is pleasant and safe to walk around. The first stop for me was the Museum of Modern Art. It is in a nice corner of the larger Chapultepec Park with some nice sculptures in the surrounding area. The gallery itself was not that impressive - not so much a permanent collection but three or four exhibits by people I hadn’t heard of and to be honest wasn’t overly impressed by. I am sure at times it has good exhibits.
I moved on up the road to the National Museum of Anthropology. This is quite a large museum in an impressive building with a wonderful interior courtyard with gardens and a fountain. The building was more memorable for me than the exhibits. The exhibits are wonderful but there are so many of them from every era of human development in Mexico that after a while I was overwhelmed and couldn’t tell my pre-Columbian from my Toltec from my Aztec or Mayan. It was just overwhelming to take it all in in one visit.
After leaving the museum I wandered around and found these costumed guys spinning around a large 150ft pole suspended by ropes around their the feet. They were upside down and slowly rotating and descending while all the time one guy was beating a small drum and playing a flute (and rotating upside down). I found out later that they are the Voladores de Papantla - their performances are on the internet. It looked a bit contrived for the tourists and visiting Mexicans, but everyone, including me, enjoyed it.
Moving on I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art (or the Museo Tamayo as it is also known as). This was smaller and a much nicer space than the previous art museum with a great collection. Lots of stuff that I really liked and just the right size to cover without getting an aching back, which usually afflicts me in larger art galleries. I was mistaken by the ladder leaning against the wall, thinking it was some maintenance going on, when actually it is “Ladder with Pink Balloon” by a Mr Ortega. I didn’t notice the small pink balloon at the top of the ladder. I could truly have created that piece.
I walked back into town along the impressive Paseo de la Reforma past the Fountain of Diana the Hunter and the statue of the Angel of Independence. It is likely one of the more important streets in the city and it’s as impressive as any major street in any modern capital. Back to the hotel I walked alongside the old relic of the Aztec Aqueduct that runs along Avenida Chapultepec.
The next day was Monday - a day when most museums, galleries and the like are closed in Mexico City. So faced with that we thought we would walk through the large park - Chapultepec Park - that was adjacent to our neighbourhood. That was easier said than done and we walked quite a ways only to find that the park also was closed on Monday (unless you were a cycle commuter and then you had access for your commute). The next mission was a market so we Ubered over to the Coyoacan Market and wandered around there for a while. Uber turned out to be a great service for traveling around Mexico City - no fussing with money, no wondering if you are being taken by a circuitous route, no worry about unmetered taxis, no security worries as the driver is clearly identifiable and visible to you and the entire world - and what is more, it is incredibly cheap.
A nice church in Coyoacan, the Parroquia de San Juan Batista (parish church of San Juan Batista I think) with wonderful paintings and a gilded altar. The Catholic Church certainly does a nice job of creating a peaceful cool retreat from the bustle of the city outside.
We had checked out of our hotel earlier in the day and in the afternoon we Ubered over to another hotel in the Centro Historico. This was the Gran Hotel de la Ciudad on the Zocalo square. A hotel we had stayed in before on a previous trip to Mexico. This is a beautiful old building, once a very fine department store now converted to a hotel. In the old part of the town which was built on an old lake bed there is a lot of subsidence and buildings lean and tilt. One of our rooms was noticeably on an angle and it was an uphill hike to the bathroom. The hotel also has a wonderful stained glass roof that is worth visiting the hotel just to see it.
The Zocalo Square was all decked out in its Christmas finery with lights on all the surrounding building, a huge fake Christmas tree, an ice skating rink and some sort of ice slide that you slid down in a big rubber inner tube (that looked like a lot of fun).
In the late afternoon we walked down Avenida Madero, the pedestrian precinct off the Zocalo, which even on a Monday was thronged with people. We had cocktails and beers in the Casa de los Azulejos (House of the Blue Tiles) which is now occupied by a Sanborns restaurant and store. There is a very nice mural by Orozco in the stairwell by the entrance to the toilets - what a wonderful building.
On the way back to the hotel we stumbled across a bakery - the Pasteleria Ideal. What a wonderful place. There are piles of cakes and buns everywhere and the way it works is you pick up a large tray and a pair of tongs and then help yourself to whatever you need. Then you go to a counter where a lady itemizes your selection and gives you a ticket. You take the ticket to a cashier and pay and then return to find your purchases wrapped or boxed ready for you to carry home. The whole wrapping procedure is done with such skill and efficiency that it is worth a visit to see that operation even if you don’t really like the Mexican pastries - which some of our party were not too impressed with (admittedly they sometimes look better than they taste). To add to the delights of the bakery there was an exhibit of elaborate iced cakes on the second floor.
The next day we visited the Cathedral on the Zocalo - a very impressive building indeed. I always enjoy visiting the old colonial churches and sitting in the cool and quiet while marveling at the ornateness and the scale of the wealth of artifacts everywhere you look. The full name of the church is the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven and it is the largest cathedral in the Americas.
While the ladies went to Mass in the Cathedral, the heathen men walked around the city. We returned after the Mass and we all took the Bell Tower tour of the Cathedral. We had done this before and it provides a wonderful view of the old city. You are taken up a spiral stone staircase up to the rooftop level and get to hear a little history of the bells installed in the various towers. Then you get to wander around on the domed roof for a while. It is remarkable that you can walk on the top of this roof that must be quite old (parts of the cathedral were built in the 16th Century), even more remarkable when the building is on a subsiding lake bed in a known earthquake zone.
Moving on we were going to visit the Palacio National, also on the Zocalo square, where there are some fine Diego Rivera murals. Alas this was not to be the case as the Palace was closed for some official function - police and men in suits were everywhere. So on we walked by a circuitous route to the Palacio de Bellas Artes. This is another fine building - Art Nouveau on the outside and Art Deco on the inside. It is noted for its fine murals by Diego Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros and others. Diego repainted here a mural similar to the one he did for the Rockefeller’s in New York and which they took offense to and destroyed - lots of communist icons - Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, etc.
In the evening we dined at a restaurant behind the Cathedral, La Casa de las Sirenas with some friends from Sacramento (the Wassermans) who were also visiting the city. The Zocalo Square was quite splending when lit up at night.
The next morning we left the city for the coast. Another Uber to the airport and a short one hour flight to Zihuatanejo (a smallish resort south of Ixtapa). The cold that had been haunting me since I arrived in Mexico was now taking hold and I welcomed the chance for a more restful beach location, though the heat and humidity were not so welcome.
Alas there was no Uber in Zihuatanejo so we took a very expensive taxi from the airport to the place we were renting. The place we were staying was an Airbnb that was on the hill behind the town. It was a beautiful condominium with three levels, three bedrooms, a small infinity pool on the top level and a great view of the bay below.
We spent 4 days here, including Christmas Day, returning to the USA on Boxing Day. We spent a fair amount of time on the beach and in the ocean with the occasional trip into town and a trip to a nearby beach that turned out to be not quite as good as the beach in town. While I was suffering from a cold I spent most mornings in the cool of the condominium reading by the pool while everyone else went off to wander around town. A nice few days rest even if I wasn’t feeling well.
Many more photos are here.
For the first couple of nights we were in a hotel in the La Condesa area of Mexico City. A nice neighborhood to the south west of the old part of town (Centro Historico).
After a much needed sleep, the others were going out to Teotihuacan to visit the pyramids there. As I had visited the site a few years earlier and as it is quite a drive out of the city, I decided not to go and stayed back in the city. I wanted to visit the Anthropology and Art Museums on the edge of Chapultepec Park which was quite nearby our hotel.
The La Condesa neighborhood is quite nice and it is pleasant and safe to walk around. The first stop for me was the Museum of Modern Art. It is in a nice corner of the larger Chapultepec Park with some nice sculptures in the surrounding area. The gallery itself was not that impressive - not so much a permanent collection but three or four exhibits by people I hadn’t heard of and to be honest wasn’t overly impressed by. I am sure at times it has good exhibits.
 |
| Interior Courtyard of National Museum of Anthropology |
 |
| Los Voladores de Papantia |
 |
| Ladder with Pink Balloon |
 |
| Angel of Independence |
The next day was Monday - a day when most museums, galleries and the like are closed in Mexico City. So faced with that we thought we would walk through the large park - Chapultepec Park - that was adjacent to our neighbourhood. That was easier said than done and we walked quite a ways only to find that the park also was closed on Monday (unless you were a cycle commuter and then you had access for your commute). The next mission was a market so we Ubered over to the Coyoacan Market and wandered around there for a while. Uber turned out to be a great service for traveling around Mexico City - no fussing with money, no wondering if you are being taken by a circuitous route, no worry about unmetered taxis, no security worries as the driver is clearly identifiable and visible to you and the entire world - and what is more, it is incredibly cheap.
 |
| Coyoacan Market |
 |
| Parroquia de San Juan Batista |
 |
| Stained Glass Ceiling of the Gran Hotel de Ciudad |
 |
| Zocalo and Cathedral at Christmas |
 |
| The Orozco Mural in the Casa de los Azulejos |
 |
| Cake Exhibit at Pasteleria Ideal |
 |
| Roof of the Metropolitan Cathedral |
 |
| Diego Rivera Mural in the Palacio de Bellas Artes |
 |
| The Zocalo at night |
The next morning we left the city for the coast. Another Uber to the airport and a short one hour flight to Zihuatanejo (a smallish resort south of Ixtapa). The cold that had been haunting me since I arrived in Mexico was now taking hold and I welcomed the chance for a more restful beach location, though the heat and humidity were not so welcome.
 |
| View of the bay at Zihuatanejo |
We spent 4 days here, including Christmas Day, returning to the USA on Boxing Day. We spent a fair amount of time on the beach and in the ocean with the occasional trip into town and a trip to a nearby beach that turned out to be not quite as good as the beach in town. While I was suffering from a cold I spent most mornings in the cool of the condominium reading by the pool while everyone else went off to wander around town. A nice few days rest even if I wasn’t feeling well.
Many more photos are here.
