Trip Report: Mexico City, Day Two

As it turns out, it takes too long to update the blog when you're actually on vacation. Spoiler: We made it home!

The second day, we decided to walk from our hotel in Condesa to the Centro Historico, the heart of old Mexico City. Google Maps said it would be about three miles. Condesa is beautiful. The streets are lined with colorful houses and big trees and cute shops and restaurants like this. 

I'd googled a little bit to make sure it was safe to walk all that way, and the consensus was "sure!" And, I mean, we're still here today and nothing bad happened (it was Sunday morning), but in general I would not recommend walking from Condesa to Centro Historico through Doctores, which we later learned is considered one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in the city, for some reason home mainly to car thieves. A guy at our hotel told us "If your car is missing, you go to Doctores to find it." We were not that surprised to hear this, because during the walk we saw many people working on cars in what were obviously, in retrospect, chop shops. Vacation!

Because Mexico City is so old, the streets are all tangled up, at angles to each other with lots of roundabouts. This meant we constantly got off-track when we thought we knew where we were going, and it made for some quite dicey accidental diversions in Doctores. At one point we walked through a small homeless encampment. What really freaked me out, though, was coming across a long block filled with people milling about, mostly on the sidewalk but also in the streets. The vibe was strange, like they were waiting for something - what were they all doing? Everyone was masked, of course. Standing around, chatting, looking at each other. Then I noticed the big building on our right said HOSPITAL. Ah, wonderful: we were wandering through crowds outside an inner city hospital in the developing world during a global pandemic. I pointed the sign out to Ben and we veered instantly into the middle of the street rather than threading our way through the crowd outside the gates. A couple of blocks later, all the businesses lining the streets were funeral homes. 

Here's a couple of shots after we were back on the main road.

We did finally reach the Centro Historico. This little chapel was the first historic item we saw.

The Zocalo is the big square at the history city center, lined with the cathedral and government buildings and shops. It's hard to overstate how big that flag is. It's SO BIG.

I had almost booked a hotel here, right on the square (the Gran Hotel de Mexico City) but changed my mind at the last second because of travelers mentioning the noise in this part of the city. Like many touristy city centers it's not particularly safe after dark, either. 

It's hard to tell because the scale is so enormous, but there were tons of people around here, and it was noisy, and after experiencing the quiet beauty of our little hotel in Condesa I was glad I'd gone with that choice.

We went inside the cathedral but as it was Sunday morning, they were having services so we couldn't enter the main part of the church.

There's a cute row of shops behind the cathedral.

Right next to the church are the ruins of the ancient Templo Mayor, the center of the Aztec city Tenochtitlan on which Mexico City was built. In true human form, the conquering Spanish used stones from the Aztec structures to build the cathedral. These ruins were only discovered by construction workers in the 1970s.

We were roughly following a walking tour from one of the books in our hotel, and stopped at Cafe Popular, one of their recommended spots. It was a diner-type place a few blocks from the Cathedral. I got a big plate of papaya.

And chicken enchiladas with black bean sauce and chorizo. This is one of their Especiales de la Casa.

Ben's sausage and cactus leaf is not very photogenic but it was excellent. It came with tortillas. This lunch was like $15, including drinks and flan for dessert.

I don't know what this building is but it looks nice.

This is a famous one, the House of Tiles. It used to be a palace for a rich family but is today the headquarters of a big chain of department stores.

The Palacio de Belles Artes is across the street. This is a big theatre and also houses an Architecture Museum and Diego Rivera murals. We didn't go inside this time.

This is an art museum we also didn't go into.

We did go inside the beautiful main post office, which is still in use today.

The Alameda Central park was packed with people on this Sunday afternoon. The weather in Mexico City is absolutely perfect. I don't know why everyone doesn't live there. Every single day you can just go outside whenever you want and you won't be too hot or too cold. Why am I in North Carolina.

We decided to go over to the Museo Franz Meyer. I didn't really know what it was but it was close by on the map and we like a weird small museum. Meyer collected all sorts of stuff - furniture, art, ceramics - throughout his life and donated it all when he died. The best part was the temporary exhibit of American designer Alexander Girard's work. I had never heard of him but I'm glad I have now.

This building was Meyer's home. Mexico City's tremendous weather means that you can have open air courtyards in your fancy house.

He also had an amazing library.

We hung out in the hotel for a couple hours while it rained, then went to find dinner. We decided to check out Temporal, recommended by the hotel, which was only a 4 minute walk away. We could not find this place at all, even with Google maps. Why are all the roads curved around each other?? So confusing. By approximately Day 4 we had finally figured out how everything fit together. 

Anyway, we made it. We sat upstairs next to an open window. Everything about it was great. My starter was the standout, tomato and corn salad with burrata. Ben's octopus tacos are in the background.

For dessert we split the chocolate tart.

We were both sunburned after the day's long walks but it was worth it! A day full of adventure in Mexico City.