Mexico City recommendations?

My daughter may be attending a Spanish language program in Mexico City this summer. We're thinking of flying down to visit for 4-5 days: Me, DH, and 17 y.o. son.

I lived there for a summer when I was 12, so I am familiar with some of the "must-dos" like Chapultapec Park, the Museo Anthropologia, and Xochomilcho.

So, LOL, what's new in Mexico City since 1971?

Any hotel or restaurant recommendations would be most welcome!

Up--still looking for recommendations! Any TUGgers ever been to Mexico City?

Yes, I go yearly, but it seems I have seen everything there is to see, and I stay with friends/family .

Mexico City Recommendations...

Janie said:

My daughter may be attending a Spanish language program in Mexico City this summer. We're thinking of flying down to visit for 4-5 days: Me, DH, and 17 y.o. son.

I lived there for a summer when I was 12, so I am familiar with some of the "must-dos" like Chapultapec Park, the Museo Anthropologia, and Xochomilcho.

So, LOL, what's new in Mexico City since 1971?

Any hotel or restaurant recommendations would be most welcome!

Click to expand...

Janie said:

Up--still looking for recommendations! Any TUGgers ever been to Mexico City?

Click to expand...

You twisted my arm hard enough so here goes:

1971??? Let's see... Diaz Ordaz was the president, or maybe it was Echeverria... ? Can Cun hadn't even been invented yet... What has changed since 1971?

Population was about 5,000,000... now it is about 20,000,000... or maybe it is 25,000,000 ? The size of the "error" is the size that the whole city was, before...

We have a new Metro, which is fast and cheap and clean and efficient... but of course it doesn't go to all sections of the city... but it goes to where you will want to visit, so you will be happy with it...

There is a water shortage problem, but not around where you will be staying... so you can wash your car and not worry about it...

There is a new Children's Museum in Chapultepec Park, which is as good as the ones I have seen in Boston or Barcelona.

Mazaryk has many new small restaurants... near "Kline's" if you remember where that is... near the "Zona" de Polanco...

The Bazaar Sabado is still going strong...

The Panda population at Chapultepec Zoo grows every year...

There are concerts at the Sala Nezahualcoyotl (at the University of Mexico... hard to pronounce, but a fabulous concert hall with great accoustics, if you go...) every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, relatively cheap, relatively very good concerts...

The old great restaurants are still the old great restaurants: San Angel Inn, and Hacienda de los Morales and Restaurant Del Lago (at Chapultepec) are still the best... There is a small restaurant in Polanco, "Pujol" which is in fact, the best...

There are bullfights on Sundays...

There are ballet and symphonies and concerts at Bellas Artes, every day except Monday, I think...

The Center of the City is nicer than before, they put in cobblestones in many streets, and made some streets only for pedestrians, which is pretty nice of them considering we are all pedestrians sometimes...

Nearby : San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato, are extremely beautiful, and I suggest you should try to go for a day or two or three...

Las Mañanitas and Sanborns and VIPS (in Cuernavaca) are still as beautiful and gracious and relaxing as they ever were in 1910, La Belle Epoque... I wasn't around in 1910, but I was around in the early 1950's and they haven't changed a bit...

Just come... I am sure you will love it. And you will "feel" welcome, I am sure, as you will anywhere in Mexico.

- Ellis

I was there this past November for 3 days/nights. It's much cleaner than it was in the 70's when I was first there.

There have been recent and good articles in the New York Times and Washington Post online editions re: things to do, places to stay, recommended restaurants. If you visit those two sites and search their sites I'll bet you will find those very recent articles very helpful in your planning.

Thanks Ellis and Carol: I absolutely loved Mexico City in 1971; I was 12 years old and coming from the midwestern US, it was the first really big city I'd ever seen. I'm sure it is very different now, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Now I'm thinking that we should stretch the trip out to 10 days, and spend some time visiting the area around San Miguel Allende.

I very much appreciate the good suggestions, and the links!

Get a good guide book, and!!!!

First read up a little on Diego Rivera ,Mexicos's most famos painter. This prepares you for what you will see. You can look him up on line and Frieda Kahlo too, also a great Mexican painter and Rivers wife. Then go to the Beyas Artes musuem and see Mexicos great mural painers, Rivera included. Then See the Ministry of Education's building for the Diego Rivera murals....Miles of them.

Then there's the Museum of contemporary art with great Frida Kalhos. The best thing you can do in four or five days is plan your next trip. There is more to see in Mexico city than you could see in two weeks.

Go shopping at the markets for crafts. The big market La Ciditadella Has every thing. I bought ceramics and a great hand woven blanket there and earings for all my friends. Cheap! Then I stumbeled opon some smaller markets with really unique crafts at even lower prices. The best deal in Mexico is paintings. There is a very high level of arts education in Mexico and you can buy a first rate oil painting at an art market for a few hundred dollars. When I go to Mexico city I do all my gift shopping and buy things I need to enliven my domestic decor. Makes for a heavy carry on on the return trip but worth it.

more Mexican artists...

mamiecarter said:

First read up a little on Diego Rivera, Mexicos's most famos painter. This prepares you for what you will see. You can look him up on line and Frida Kahlo too, also a great Mexican painter and Rivera's wife.

Then there's the Museum of contemporary art with great Frida Kalhos.

Go shopping at the markets for crafts. The big market La Ciudadela has every thing.

The best deal in Mexico is paintings. There is a very high level of arts education in Mexico and you can buy a first rate oil painting at an art market for a few hundred dollars.

Click to expand...

Frida Kahlo paintings are now worth a lot more than Diego Rivera paintings, perhaps because there was much less of it, and there is a world-wide craze for everything by Frida Kahlo... somehow, her paintings hit a raw nerve, people really get to feel her pain. Her paintings ARE her biography.

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo/kahlo_deer.jpg.html

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo/two_fridas.jpg.html

The movie of her life didn't transmit the pain, which might explain why it didn't receive any big awards.

I suggest you should go to the Frida Kahlo museum, which is in Coyoacan. It is the house where she lived with Diego Rivera, and it is extremely interesting. After that, you can go to the center of Coyoacan walk around the park, and eat at a restaurant there. If it happens to be a Sunday afternoon, it will be full of music and activities. (Why do I love Mexico?)

If you are interested in paintings, there are other very big Mexican painters... I suggest you look up David Alfaro Siquieros..

http://mexico.udg.mx/arte/pintores/coronel.html

Also Remedios Varo, and Leonora Carrington.

An interesting anecdote: my uncle, Paul Antebi, was a left-wing capitalist in Mexico City... that is, in spite of the fact that he was enormously wealthy and made his money with a pharmaceutical laboratory (Carnot) competing in a free enterprise system, he always supported social causes... he didn't care for politics, he supported everybody, left and right... he didn't really care about your politics, he cared about your talent...


During the years that Siqueiros, who was politically extreme left, was in jail (several years, in the 1960's) my uncle bought ALL of his paintings, which he painted while he was in jail... so at one point my uncle had the largest collection of Siquieros, which also included most of his best paintings.

After my uncle's death, the collection was sold by his heirs and it is now scattered in museums around the world. (I was not one of his heirs... unfortunately... or fortunately, because all his heirs are fought with each other.)

Remedios Varo is another very very big artist... Her paintings are found on the covers of many books... for example "Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst"

http://www.turingmachine.org/remedios/picture5.html

or "Visit to the Plastic Surgeon"

http://www.turingmachine.org/remedios/picture4.html

A Google search for all of these artists will bring up literally thousands of pages and images, and biographies, etc. I mean, they are really BIG.

Have fun.

- Ellis

Thank you Mamie and Ellis: We do like art, and will definitely visit the Frida paintings and her house (my daughter was a big fan of the movie).

Ellis, those links are incredible: I have never heard of the artists you mentioned but their work is wonderful--so powerful--I can see I will learn a lot from this trip