Our second day in Mexico City was Monday — as in ALL museums are closed Monday. Not to be stymied in our efforts to see and learn more about Mexico City (or so we thought), we headed to Chapultepec Park. This is a top rated thing to do in the city as the vast park holds not only a number of museums but also has man-made lakes, walking trails, fountains, and statues. We thought it would make for a lovely half-day of walking and would also allow us to see the broad and beautiful Paseo de la Reforma, one of the main streets in the city, as we would need to walk that to get to the park.
We aren’t as smart as we thought. Unbeknownst to us, Mexico City closes the entire park to visitors on Mondays. It is twice the size of Central Park — closed! There is an iron fence surrounding the park, and on Mondays all gates are locked. We spoke with the nice security people who told us that “yes, the whole park is closed on Mondays” as if the closing of vast stretches of public park space is an obvious thing to do.
We decided that Plan B would be to pay to be driven around in a tourist bus to learn some facts about the sites we were seeing as well as to see additional sites. After about a 90 minute walk to the Zocalo Square from the park, we paid the equivalent of $8 for a 3 hour tour. The bus drivers, who are able to successfully negotiate the madness that is Mexico City traffic (including 2-way traffic around round-about some), ought perhaps to be given some gubernatorial authority as well cuz they are good.
Some photos of our day —
A view of the Paseo de la Reforma from our hotelLooking down the Paseo de la Reforma as we were walkingThe Paseo is lined with memorial, public art, and modern buildings. This is a statue to the 10th Aztec ruler who rebelled against the Spanish occupiers.This is the Diana the Huntress fountainOne of many public art works along the PaseoThe Angel of Independence statue on the Paseo was built in 1910 to commemorate the centennial of the beginning of Mexico’s War of IndependenceAnother view of the statue — groups of up to 6 people at a time who have requested permission from the borough are allowed to enter for 15 minutes. They can also climb the 200 steps to the top.We thought this building along the Paseo was cool looking and it has a helipadWe also liked the Mexico Stock Exchange buildingThis is a digital light tower that lies just outside of Chapultepec Park. It is actually a cultural complex dedicated to activities of digital artWe took this photo from a bridge that took us to one of the many closed gates into Chapultepec Park. We were having bridge envy as the pedestrian bridge in the photo is much more attractive than the one we were on. Of course, neither bridge to the park is of much use on a Monday. . .On our walk back from the park to catch a tour bus, we ate our picnic lunch in the Alameda Central Park near this statue which commemorates the magnitude 8.0 earthquake which struck Mexico City on the date sitedAnother piece of public art that we passed going to the tourbusThis was a different tour company than the one we took, but our bus was very similar. We sat on top and had headphones for the English translation of the Spanish commentary.Monument to the Revolution — View 1Monument to the Revolution — View 2Soumaya Museum — an art museum named for the wife of Carlos Slim, once the richest person in the worldStatue of Abraham Lincoln in one of the neighborhood parks — the same park also has a statue of MLKA military field that we saw on the tourWe stumbled on a little Chinatown area on our walk back towards our hotel from the bus tourMore of the Chinatown area
Peckish Travels 