Trip Report: Mexico City, Day Seven

The breakfast at our hotel was fantastic every day. Fruit, baked goods, and a traditional Mexico main. On our last day it was grilled bread with cheese, which I am positive has an official name, but since this took place seven months ago I can no longer remember it.

Here's Ben in his cool pants I bought for him on the internet.

We decided to spend the last day exploring the Bosque de Chapultepec, a huge park which contains various monuments and museums. 

At the top of the hill is Chapultepec Castle, which used to be the seat of government but is now the Mexican National Museum of History. We had tried to go here the first day, because I always like to visit the local history museum first to get a good feel for wherever we are, but at the time it was closed.

The building and grounds were beautiful, impeccably landscaped. 

This was the first place we visited that talked in detail about the period after Europeans came and took over the country. It was a bit jarring to see the usual dark paintings and heavy European furniture, to witness how thoroughly the traditional culture was subsumed under this new rule.

Some of the art in the building itself still retained some of the interesting flair.

The Castle towers over the city, with beautiful views on all sides.

Down there is the monument to the martyred boys we ran across on the first day.

I was really trying to soak up the perfect beautiful weather as we wandered the gardens, knowing what we were in for returning to North Carolina at the beginning of July.

We walked back down the hill and wandered around the park for a bit, ending up in the zoo. It was free but there is also one designated path you have to take that winds throughout the entire thing, and after a while we got thirsty and hungry and nothing was open because of COVID and we couldn't figure out how to get out. It was stressful. If you go to the zoo in Mexico City, take snacks.

By the time we made it back out to the street we knew we were too hungry to bother with trying to find somewhere to eat, so we took an Uber back to our neighborhood and ate lunch at Ojo de Agua across from our hotel. Every day when we walked past there were always people eating beautiful salads, so this seemed like a great opportunity to finally try one. We got a table on the covered patio just as it started to rain. The salads: they were good.

The rain really came down hard for a long time. We sat here and drank coffee and watched it.

The street performers had to huddle under the canopy too which was a little awkward. We gave them some pesos, then returned to our room to wait out the rain and watch some Netflix.

For dinner we returned to Temporal, where we'd eaten the first night. Among other things, we ordered the dessert of the day. The waiter explained what it was, we had no idea what he said but ordered it anyway, and it was beautiful and delicious. What is it? We still don't know.

Mexico City exceeded all expectations. I would love to go back and see some of the things we missed, and do more eating. Lots more eating.

Trip Report: Mexico City, Day Six

We headed into the old part of the city to visit some museums and attractions. The city was bustling! And all masked up.

We went to the National Museum of Cultures. It's always so interesting to see how different countries talk about other cultures. This had exhibitions and artifacts about all of the major countries of the world. Most of it was replicas, but interesting nonetheless.

 

My favorite - and slightly more accessible than the real thing in Paris!

The museum is in a beautiful old building with a big open courtyard.

After this we went back inside the nearby cathedral hoping there was a public bathroom. There was not. But this time they weren't holding services so we got to see the impressively ornate main altar.

We were hungry and Cafe El Popular was on the way, so we went there again. It was just as good the second time.

Then we popped over to the Museo de Bellas Artes to see their famous Diego Rivera murals. The building is mainly used as a theatre. There is an architecture museum at the top but it was closed for renovations. 

They were taking temperatures upon entry, like every single other place we went, but this time Ben's was too high! They made him go stand in the corner for a couple of minutes, along with four or five other people who were also waiting for a recheck. Everyone was fine the second time so we think their thermometer was on the fritz.

There were murals by other Mexican artists as well.

Then we popped over to the printmaking museum nearby, which was small and deserted and full of random interesting things. Our preferred museum type.

Then we rested until dinner in our lovely calm and beautiful room.

For dinner we went to Pujol, widely considered the best restaurant in the Americas amongst people who spend their time rating high-end restaurants.

The price is in Mexico pesos. We're not insane.

Pujol is the type of place where everything is elaborately plated and also interesting and delicious. They gave us little smoked corns to start (not on the menu).

The thing Pujol is most famous for is their mole. They have an aged one and a "new" one and serve them together on a plate with tortillas and boy, it is far greater than the sum of its parts.

The dessert was a delightful strawberry custard-type thing. 

Pujol is worth it! You should go.

Trip Report: Mexico City, Day Five

I forgot about this for four months so hopefully I can remember the details of the second half of the trip...

I know for sure that on Day 5 we had to get a COVID test. Neither of us had had one before, but it was required for everyone entering the US, even vaccinated citizens, no more than 3 days before arrival. I wanted to get this done as soon as possible to minimize the potential exposure time before testing. Fortunately our hotel arranged for a nurse to come and do the test right there, saving us the surely traumatic experience of standing around for ages in a Mexican Urgent Care.

Hooray! We were both negative. 

We set out for the extremely wealthy neighborhood of Polanco, where several museums are located. This area looked exactly like any other city's expensive shopping district. Soulless but clean and shiny. We stopped first at a food court to get lunch because we had become murderously hungry.

We went first to the Museo Jumex, a contemporary art museum. It had some interesting exhibits but turned out to be relatively small. 

Then we went across the street to the Soumaya Museum, which the internet seemed to indicate is underwhelming, but we thought it was great. This is the personal collection of Carlos Slim, Mexico's richest man, and contained all sorts of treasures ranging from Renaissance paintings to antique harpsichords to a complete historical display of telephone technology to dozens of Rodin sculptures. 

There were also a few of these old cylindrical records. My Uncle Skeeter had dozens of these in barrels in his basement. 

There was one whole level devoted to carved elephant ivory.

I got in trouble for leaning over the railing to take this picture.

Here we are waiting for our Uber. It was juuuust about to rain but we made it in the car before it started.

We went back to our neighborhood and got a coffee. Ahh, Condesa, I miss you.

For dinner we walked over to La Capital, a hotel suggestion. We didn't have a reservation but got a great table and boy, this food and the service were incredible. I wanted to go back again the next night but Ben said we had to keep trying new places. We started with tuna tartare.

I'm pretty sure this is Ben's grilled octopus (it's been a while!). He loves octopus.

I got some kind of chicken thing with burrata and herbs that was the single best thing I ate in Mexico City. Outrageously good. 

I got a nice fruity cocktail.

Then, because we are dumb, we ordered dessert. It was just berries so we thought it would be a nice light closure to the meal but it was enormous. We managed to finish it, though.