Mexico City | Part 1
Mexico City is home to 22 million people and has also become quite the draw for tourists, food-lovers, and digital nomads. I had never visited, but Alex has been to Mexico City several times. We had grand plans of going together back in 2020, but of course that never happened– until now! We arrived in the city on Christmas Day, and though our fight was delayed, we lucked out with a chain taco spot, Taco Naco, that was opened even on the holiday. So, straight to tacos we went!
We stayed at the Andaz Condesa, which was lovely and had a record player for our room!
Day one was for neighborhood explorations, starting with breakfast at Ojo de Agua. Tropical fruits, my favorite!
The famous pink cabs of CDMX.
A very lush tree-lined walkway runs in an oval around whole Condesa neighborhood, making for a lovely walk.
One of many city parks.
Churros, of course!
A peek at Bao Bao, a Taiwanese restaurant which was our original hope for Christmas dinner, but we arrived too late for that. Not to worry, we would come back later!
Cafebreria El Pendulo Roma. A cafe-bookstore with a few locations around the city.
Our first reservation of the trip was lunch at Maximo.
Such a unique space.
A bike shop in the back and cafe in the front.
Dinner at Botanico. They have axolotls in the pond!
Ready for day two. The theme: CULTURE.
More walking around Condesa and Avenida Amsterdam
Brunch at Lardo
The National Museum of Anthropology, a massive complex covering the various pre-Hispanic cultures of what is now known as Mexico.
It’s very large and quite overwhelming, but certainly worth a visit.
The Aztec Empire was in the middle of Mexico, including present-day Mexico City, which was their capital city of Tenochtitlan, built on an island in the middle of a giant lake in the middle of a mountain range. Here is a model of the former capital city with its temples, plus a painting on the wall showing the lake. Take note, because we visit the ruins of these exact temples later in the trip! Today the lake has been completely drained, and Mexico City is now a municipality of 22 million people.
The Aztec Sun Stone, which depicts the sun holding a human heart in each hand. The Aztecs did practice human sacrifice, and captions for this display suggested this stone may have presided over the sacrifices and other important ceremonies.
All of the Mesoamerican cultures also highly valued jade and other green stones, as well as gold, obsidian, and conchas.
The Mayans were (and still are) on the Yucatan Peninsula and were known for inventing a calendar, base 20 mathematics, a writing system, agriculture, and for building a lot of temples.
After the museum visit, we walked through Chapultepec Park (within which the museum is located), noting all of the street stands along the way.
And we emerged on the other end of the park into a neighborhood for our next stop: Casa Gilardi. It’s a private home designed by famed Mexican architect Luis Barragan. He is the only Mexican architect to have won the Pritzker Prize.
The tour wonderful and unconventional since the house has always been privately owned and still is– the son of the family was the one opening his home to us, and his mom was just around making lunch and living her life. I loved going in without knowing anything about the house or architect and being surprised by what we found revealed behind each new hallway or doorway.
Such beautiful ways to play with light and color.
Finally, rounding out our culture day, we had tickets to watch Ballet Folklorico’s Christmas performance at the Castillo Chapultepec on top of the park where we were earlier. It was a gigantic walk up the hill to get there, but a very interesting show awaited us. It was very Catholic and had a huge cast with many costume changes.
Loved the different styles of dance.
Day three began with a really delicious tlacoyo, this football-shaped taco, as made by two ladies at a stand in the parking lot of Mercado Medellin.
A quick walk through the market.
Record shop! Retroactivo.
Lunch was at Entremar, from well-known Contremar chef Gabriela Cámara. We got the iconic pescado a la talla, a butterflied fish with red salsa on one half and green on the other.
Then it was art museum time in the fancy Polanco neighborhood. These two museums are right next to each other but quite different vibes on the inside.
First, the white building with the zig zag top: Museo Jumex. It’s a private collection of modern art, free to the public.
Then just across the street, we visited Museo Soumaya, also a private collection that is free to the public to visit. This museum is founded by billionaire Carlos Slim and was named after his wife . First, a Diego Rivera mosaic.
The top floor is all Rodin sculptures. More Rodin sculptures than you’ve ever seen in the rest of your life, combined.
There are some interesting Guggenheim vibes with the ramps between floors.
The collection is truly sprawling, and it is a lot of art crammed into each space.
Everything from medieval art to Dali and beyond.
I liked the last little gallery tucked underneath the ramp that was a bunch of different objects. First, a whole section on music, including instruments, music boxes, and different recording players.
A large collection of phones through the years, and a large collection of watches too. I had Alex add his own to the collections.
A Bulgari take on the museum architecture. And one last look from the outside.
Crossing the street to the upscale mall and hailing an Uber to get back home.
Golden hour from the roof bar at our hotel, the Andaz.
Dinner is a brief taco crawl! Stop one: Cariñito. Some interesting Asian-inspired flavors. Very tasty!
More churros. And tacos part two…
Taqueria “Orinoco,” which had a huge line out the door.
Gigantic cup of jamaica agua fresca. And a pile of tasty tacos.
And that was only the first half of our Mexico City visit! Wow. Stay tuned for part two.
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.
