Mexico City, Mexico, 22-24 August 2016

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We were staying in the middle of Mexico City at the Gran Hotel Cuidad de Mexico (Grand Hotel of Mexico City) which is at the Zocalo, the central square of the city.  I was impressed by the French art nouveau styling and the stained glass canopy, created in 1908.

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On our first night it was raining and this was a view from the end of a corridor near our room.

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The Catedral Metropolitana, at the north end of the square, through the rain.

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After visiting Frida Kahlo’s house, we returned to the hotel and then set off for the Museo de Templo Mayor.  On the way, we walked across to the eastern side of the Zocalo and visited the Palacio Nacional.  It was originally the Palace of Montezuma II and Cortes rebuilt it as a fortress.  It was rebuilt again after it was burned in the Hunger Riots of 1692.  The Aztecs had a carefully planned system to divert spring water so that Tenochtitlan was surrounded by fresh spring water rather than turgid lake water.  That also made surrounding agricultural land highly productive.  The Spanish understood none of this and destroyed the canal system, undermining the local environment and ultimately leading to the hunger riots.

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This is Diego Rivera’s grand mural of Mexican history around the main staircase. You may need to click on it to see the detail, which includes representations of Frida Kahlo, Karl Marx and John D Rockefeller in the left panel.

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More murals by Diego Rivera, showing the pre-Columbian era and post-conquest.

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This series of murals was never finished.

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An internal courtyard showing the scale of the building.

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From the Palacio Nacional we walked through the colourful streets of Mexico City towards the Museo de Templo Mayor.

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(The remains of the main temple of Tenochtitlan (the Templo Mayor) and our visit to the Museo de Templo Mayor follow in the next two posts).

 

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In the morning of our last day in Mexico City, we had time to visit the Museo Nacional de Arte.  You look up at this in the main hall.

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Looking up in one of the staircases, you see this much older spectacle.

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