ShonTron
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- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
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- Ward 13 - Toronto Centre
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After a conference in Merida, I spent three days in Mexico City, the largest city in the Americas, one of the biggest in the world, and an interesting mix of Latin American/European monumentalism and really messy urbanism. In many ways, it beats Toronto's messy urbanism.
Views from my hotel room. Mind the dirty windows, but the hotel itself was lovely (thank you again, Priceline)
Walking toward the Zocalo.
The Fine Arts Palace. Noted for the Diego Rivera murals and art deco interior.
Diego's interesting Man, Controller of the Universe. This is what was intended for Rockefeller Center, but the portrait of Lenin and the Communist sympathies had the original painted over. This version has Rockefeller himself womanizing and drinking.
Views form the interesting (but not all that pretty) Torre LatinoAmerica.
The Zocalo. It was built on top of the Aztec City. Some of the ruins are now exposed, and glass windows down in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral show how the Spaniards built their city right on top.
I guess these guys are the equivalent of the Mounties in the red tunics.
Vendor kiosks on Reforma. It looks like Scotiabank has its name all over Mexico like a Toronto cultural event or movie theatre.
The Monument of the Revolution. It is built out of the abandoned construction of the rotunda of the legislative building in the 1920s.
UNAM is a modernist paradise. This was during Easter week - locals were just enjoying the grounds. It's also a UNESCO world heritage site (one of four in the Mexico Metropolitan area)
From UNAM, I took the Metrobus on Insurgentes Avenue. It's Curitba-style BRT, with pre-payment via smartcards and turnstiles, high-platform boarding, and median operation. All the Metrobus stations have icons like the Metro stations.
La Reforma buildings
Chapultepec Park and the amazing National Anthropology Museum. Entrance was very inexpensive (about $4.50 CDN) and Sundays are free at all government-owned museums and sites.
The park has a great zoo, and it's free. Visiting it was a way just to get a taste of the sheer numbers of humanity that lives here. And how many zoos have Pandas?
Some of our forum members?
One of the most interesting things about going to Teotihuacan is the Metro/bus ride north. The bus (only $34 pesos or $3.25 Canadian one way, plus a $2 Peso Metro ticket) starts from a gigantic bus terminal with its own Metro station, and then passes through the suburbs and shantytowns. Also, by not taking a tourist bus, you don't stop at tourist traps along the way.
These are the ruins of a city that once was as big as 250,000, and pre-dates the Aztec civilization. Very interesting, but perhaps a bit too commercialized (there were vendors everywhere). And very crowded, though I missed the worst of the crowds.
After a conference in Merida, I spent three days in Mexico City, the largest city in the Americas, one of the biggest in the world, and an interesting mix of Latin American/European monumentalism and really messy urbanism. In many ways, it beats Toronto's messy urbanism.
Views from my hotel room. Mind the dirty windows, but the hotel itself was lovely (thank you again, Priceline)
Walking toward the Zocalo.
The Fine Arts Palace. Noted for the Diego Rivera murals and art deco interior.
Diego's interesting Man, Controller of the Universe. This is what was intended for Rockefeller Center, but the portrait of Lenin and the Communist sympathies had the original painted over. This version has Rockefeller himself womanizing and drinking.
Views form the interesting (but not all that pretty) Torre LatinoAmerica.
The Zocalo. It was built on top of the Aztec City. Some of the ruins are now exposed, and glass windows down in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral show how the Spaniards built their city right on top.
I guess these guys are the equivalent of the Mounties in the red tunics.
Vendor kiosks on Reforma. It looks like Scotiabank has its name all over Mexico like a Toronto cultural event or movie theatre.
The Monument of the Revolution. It is built out of the abandoned construction of the rotunda of the legislative building in the 1920s.
UNAM is a modernist paradise. This was during Easter week - locals were just enjoying the grounds. It's also a UNESCO world heritage site (one of four in the Mexico Metropolitan area)
From UNAM, I took the Metrobus on Insurgentes Avenue. It's Curitba-style BRT, with pre-payment via smartcards and turnstiles, high-platform boarding, and median operation. All the Metrobus stations have icons like the Metro stations.
La Reforma buildings
Chapultepec Park and the amazing National Anthropology Museum. Entrance was very inexpensive (about $4.50 CDN) and Sundays are free at all government-owned museums and sites.
The park has a great zoo, and it's free. Visiting it was a way just to get a taste of the sheer numbers of humanity that lives here. And how many zoos have Pandas?
Some of our forum members?
One of the most interesting things about going to Teotihuacan is the Metro/bus ride north. The bus (only $34 pesos or $3.25 Canadian one way, plus a $2 Peso Metro ticket) starts from a gigantic bus terminal with its own Metro station, and then passes through the suburbs and shantytowns. Also, by not taking a tourist bus, you don't stop at tourist traps along the way.
These are the ruins of a city that once was as big as 250,000, and pre-dates the Aztec civilization. Very interesting, but perhaps a bit too commercialized (there were vendors everywhere). And very crowded, though I missed the worst of the crowds.
