Mexico City farewell

Sunday 19 to Wednesday 22 April

Our exit from Cuba included booking a flight from Mexico City to Panama City, so after our Copper Canyon adventure we returned to Mexico City. It had been an amazing 5 1/2 weeks exploring archaeological sights, forests, beaches and cities.

We flew into Mexioc City early Sunday morning and had to be content leaving the bags at the hotel reception.

Sunday is a day out in Mexico. We had seen the bikes on the Reforma during our last visit. This time it was the crowds on Avenido Madero, the pedestrian street.

We opted for some culture and visited the Museo Nacional de Arte to see the development of art in Mexico after the Spanish arrived. It was an interesting exhibition, but the sophistication of art in the British Landscapes from the Tate temporary exhibition showed the Mexican art up.

I really enjoyed seeing art relating to the native Indian’s lifestyle.

As we exited the museum a Beatles cover band was playing in the forecourt. There were some oldies who were rocking and dancing to the excellent band.  I couldn’t help but make a request – they did a great job of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ for me.

The next day we needed to send postcards to Hayden & Evan – so we visited the Palacio Postal, a stunning building which has been well restored, but still maintaining it’s original purpose of delivering letters and parcels. Those postcards took 4 weeks to arrive at their destinations.

From there we checked out Mexico’s most famous drug store Sanborns, located in La Casa de los Azulejos (The House of Tiles). The house itself has an interesting history. It is fantastic – an old fashioned tea house where we were waited on by matronly, colourfully dressed ladies. They served a perfect lime tart and my new favourite drink lemonade, which is in fact lime juice with a little syrup and water and lots of ice.

I had an urge to visit the zoo.  It is free and they breed pandas. Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes.  It was a sad place.

We had a much better experience visiting Castillo de Chapultepec (on grasshopper’s hill). It was built in stages, but Mexico’s only emperor Maximilian and Carlota refurbished it as their grand residence. It was also used by Mexico’s presidents until 1939, when it was converted to a museum.

We treated ourselves to the rooftop restaurant of the Gran Hotel Ciudad de México for our last dinner, and were treated to a grand view of the Zócale (or Plaza de la Constitución) as the sun faded.

Thanks Steph for your inspiration and suggestions to visit Mexico – we loved it.