Mexico City Adventure #3- El Zócalo + Palacio de Bellas Artes

Wednesday, December 27th (continued)

Picking up where I left off…. So after the Basilica, we split up and Ivan, his dad, the boys and I continued on to the Historic Centro, or “Zócalo”. This where the Cathedral is, the National Palace, and more. Various historical sights are here (or near here) and it’s basically the “main square”.

We parked in a ramp (again, traffic was very congested and oodles of pedestrians) and then walked just a couple blocks.

El Zócalo

I was super excited to see that it was all decorated for Christmas!! And very nicely done, too. There was a stage set up for an upcoming concert, but in the meantime, they had Christmas carols blaring from the speakers! Yay!

It was getting close to dusk but still light out. Perfect, actually, since we got to see it by day and by night by the time we left.

There is a HUGE Mexican flag in the middle, and again, timing worked out well because we got there just in time to see the Mexican military do their nightly ritual of taking the flag down.

That took a while, and we just watched and milled around a bit.

National Palace:

On one side of the square is the National Palace, which is a government building and where the president has lived historically. (Though I believe not currently.)

I really wanted to go in here, because there is a big, famous mural by Diego Rivera inside. But it was too late. Oh well- I knew that was going to be the case.

Cathedral:

The cathedral had some renovations underway with scaffolding on it, but it’s still pretty impressive.

There were some traditional indigenous dancers on the side that were neat to watch!

The sun started to set and I LOVED the lighting at this time of night!!! It was great! The sky looked really cool.

The National Palace looked awesome! No filter!

We made our way back to the other side of the square. Check out the big Christmas trees- I hadn’t realized at first that they are made of poinsettias!! Wow.

I still wanted to go see el Palacio de Bellas Artes, but it was about 1/2 mile away. We walked all along this very busy pedestrian street which was extremely lively and full of restaurants, shops, etc.

Along the way we stumbled across the Palacio de Iturbide, which had a FREE and very large Nativity exhibit on display. There were two levels full of dozens and dozens of different handmade nativity sets which came from all over Mexico and Latin America.

Here’s a sampling- they were just beautiful! And all so unique. I loved the ones from Peru.

It is also a gorgeous old building! A great random find.

From there we continued walking… these pics show how crowded it was! No issues of any kind and it’s been extremely safe. Just lots of people out enjoying their holiday break! Tons of families, etc.

Palacio de Bellas Artes

Finally got to our destination- the Palace of Fine Arts. A very impressive building. Quite breathtaking.

There’s tons of action in this area, with a big adjacent park on one side that has lots of vendors, music, etc. Typical big city scene like a Central Park vibe.

Ivan and Asher shared some esquites and I considered buying another churro, but I knew we were going to get dinner after this… so I withheld my craving. 🙂

More tacos

Ivan’s dad had a certain taco place he wanted to hit up on the way back to Ivan’s aunts house, where we would be spending the night. Yes, we also had tacos for lunch… is there such thing as too many tacos? No, not really.

I had 2 plus a cup of delicious consomé (a soup broth with onion and cilantro and fabulous flavor).

I was tired by the end of all of this! And my back was really acting up with all the slow walking/shuffling around … ugh. That was probably the one negative of an otherwise great day.

Back at Ivan’s aunt’s house we visited some with them and eventually put on a movie. Somehow we ended up with the first of the newer Jumanji movies- which I have seen before and I love. It’s just so funny!! It felt good to stretch out on the couch and watch the movie and relax. (They also have an electric fireplace, AND it’s warmer in Mexico City, so I was plenty warm which also felt good!)

This was a really great day, between the Basilica and the other downtown adventures!