In 1971, during one of his retirements, my father went to Mexico City for six months and loved it. My father could pass for Mexican, about 5'5", pudgy, dark complexion, black hair, did not speak Spanish but smiled and said Si to everything. Ever since, Mexico City has been on my bucket list. Last week, my sons away, I went. Literally, everything and every moment was a great favorable surprise.
Read below and see photos:
I expected more poverty, crime, pollution, filth, boring pottery and shards, everywhere border Mexican burritos and tacos, anti-US people. I was wrong on every count.
I stayed in the Historic Center, near to all, in a well-remodeled hotel at a reasonable rate right on the main square, the Zocolo, third largest in the world, a James Bond movie filmed there.
The rate included a full menu breakfast and excellent baking, freshly squeezed orange juice, deep roast coffee. The restaurant is on the roof overlooking the cathedral and palace surrounding the square. There are museums in the palace, and in the center a pyramid ruin where last month several thousand sacrificed heads were discovered.
The dinners on our hotel's rooftop were fantastic gourmet delights, as were all other dinners elsewhere. Mexico City is a foodie destination. Its hard to choose favorites, but on our rooftop the 9-course tapa dinner was one incredible flavor after another, and at another restaurant the potted beef tongue in a special sauce was a special treat. Service everywhere was impeccable and friendly. Prices were a fourth or less than gourmet restaurants in the USA.
Mexico City has more museums than any city in the world, over 150. I went to a dozen or so and they were world class collections from archeology to cultural to nature to arts to sciences to historical to palaces and castles.
Homeboy Diego Rivera's murals are in many locations.
In the neighborhood of beautiful skyscrapers, Polenco, populated with multinational corporations, Carlos Sim, eighth richest in the world (saved the NY Times from near bankruptcy several years ago) built a unique building named after his wife with five floors of varied art works, including the largest collection of Rodin outside of France.
An interesting feature was that many paintings were hung by wires so the rear of the frames could be seen, showing the sundry auctions' tags and provenance of the works.
Another recent museum is a Musuem Of Tolerance. The top three stories are of the Holocaust. The next floor down I call the "Never Again, Call BS On That" floor, about the many genocides since WWII.
Chapultepec Park is near 800-acres. Winding paths and a lake full of paddle boats, vendors lining the ways. There is a cute childrens garden made from recycled odds and ends of plastic refuse.
The castle atop a hill in the park was the home of Maximillian II and successive presidents after that.
We saw the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico at the Palacio de Belle Artes, a large baroque building. There are several museums within the Palacio. The theater stage is much deeper than in even the large USA theaters, to accommodate the many dancers and musicians. Tenth row center orchestra seats were just $60 each, and the tilt of the floor gave excellent views. The curtain is about 100 feet wide and 50 feet tall, made of stained glass, with shifting lights playing through it from behind. It lifts straight up into what must be a giant space. A solid 100 minutes of fascinating dances and music.
The pyramids and ruins at Teotihicuan, about an hour outside Mexico City, are the third tallest in the world. The city at its peak about 1st-3rd centuries CE held up to 200,000 people, making it among the largest cities in the world at that time. I'm glad I worked out running stairs before the trip for the climbs to the tops of the temples of the sun and of the moon. This is the shorter temple of the moon .
The physical infrastructure of Mexico City is well planned and laid out, with many wide boulevards and criss-crossing streets....but for half the present population of over 10-million. Still, no real problems getting around by clean, safe taxis (using the ones called by hotels and not the ones cruising).
Of course, as in any large city, you'd want to be careful, but I encountered no feelings of threats.
There were very few from the US or Canada or Europe in Mexico City, even though it is one of the world's great cities, kept away by a bad rep for crime or pollution or simply ignorance. I don't get why tourists instead travel at high prices to the crowded US style hotels at the coastal resort cities. What a miss to not experience and immerse in the variey of cultures and rich history of Mexico. I went to the library today and took out a respected college textbook history of Mexico, as I realized although I knew much, I know little.
