Travel

Central Mexico: December 2014 to January 2015

During December 2014 to January 2015, my husband Chuck and I did a road trip with our friend Pepe to 5 different cities in Central Mexico: Valle de Bravo, Mexico City, Puebla, San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato.

We got to attend his sister’s beautiful wedding while we were in Valle de Bravo.

VALLE DE BRAVO

Valle de Bravo located on the shore of Lake Avándaro is approximately 2 hours southwest from Mexico City by car.

Valle de Bravo was deemed a pueblo mágico, which is a series of towns selected around the country that offer visitors a "magical" experience – by reason of their natural beauty, cultural riches, or historical relevance.

MEXICO CITY

Mexico City is one of the most important financial centers in the Americas. The Greater Mexico City population is just over 20 million people, making it the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere, the tenth largest agglomeration, and the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world. See the April 2014 chart to see where Mexico City falls in the world’s ranking of most populous cities.

Pictured here: top left: the Mexican flag flying over Mexico city, top right: Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts), bottom left: view of some of the many skyscrapers in Mexico City, bottom right: Chuck and I in front of the Angel of Independence built in 1910 to commemorate the centennial of the beginning of Mexico's War of Independence.

The main plaza in Mexico City, the Zócalo. It was the main ceremonial center in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and from the colonial period on, the main plaza or square in the heart of the historic center of Mexico City.

The modern Zócalo in Mexico City is 57,600 metres² (240 m × 240 m), making it one of the largest city squares in the world.

It is bordered by the Cathedral to the north, the National Palace to the east, the Federal District buildings to the south and the Old Portal de Mercaderes to the west, the Nacional Monte de Piedad building at the north-west corner, with the Templo Mayor site to the northeast. In the center is a flagpole with an enormous Mexican flag ceremoniously raised and lowered each day and carried into the National Palace.

While we were there in December, there was a large temporary ice rink.

In and around the Zócalo, we walked along with some of the 20 million inhabitants.

The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary of Mexico City (Spanish: Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción de María) is the largest cathedral in the Americas, and seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico.

It is situated atop the former Aztec sacred precinct near the Templo Mayor on the northern side of the Plaza de la Constitución in Downtown Mexico City.

The cathedral was built in sections from 1573 to 1813 around the original church that was constructed soon after the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan, eventually replacing it entirely. Spanish architect Claudio de Arciniega planned the construction, drawing inspiration from Gothic cathedrals in Spain.

Chapultepec Castle (Spanish: Castillo de Chapultepec) is located on top of Chapultepec Hill. The name Chapultepec stems from the Nahuatl word chapoltepēc which means "at the grasshopper's hill."

It is located in the middle of Chapultepec Park in Mexico City at a height of 2,325 meters (7,628 ft) above sea level.

The site of the hill was a sacred place for Aztecs, and the buildings atop it have served several purposes during its history, including that of Military Academy, Imperial residence, Presidential home, observatory, and presently, the Museo Nacional de Historia.

There were beautiful views of Mexico City from the castle and inside were ornate rooms and floor to ceiling murals.

In 1521, Indians and Europeans fought for Tenochtitlan, an Aztec city-state. Here is a tzompantli or altar formed with the skulls of the prisoners killed by the Acolhuas, a sister culture of the Aztecs. It was discovered in May 1933 in Tecoaque, an archeological site in central Mexico. Half of the skulls are from Spaniards and the other half are natives who were allies of the Spanish conquistadors. The picture behind the skulls show how they were displayed mounted on a connecting bar.

Coyoacán refers to one of the 16 boroughs (delegaciones) of the Federal District of Mexico City as well as the former village which is now the borough’s “historic center.”

The name comes from Nahuatl and most likely means “place of coyotes,” when the Aztecs named a pre-Hispanic village on the southern shore of Lake Texcoco which was dominated by the Tepanec people. Against Aztec domination, these people welcomed Hernán Cortés and the Spanish, who used the area as a headquarters during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and made it the first capital of New Spain between 1521 and 1523.

The village, later municipality, of Coyoacan remained completely independent of Mexico City through the colonial period into the 19th century.

PUEBLA

The city of Puebla (population about 6 million) is Mexico’s fourth largest city, and one of the five most important Spanish colonial cities in Mexico. A colonial era-planned city, it is located southeast of Mexico City and west of Mexico's main Atlantic port, Veracruz, on the main route between the two in Central Mexico.

Due to its history and architectural styles ranging from Renaissance to Mexican Baroque, the city was named a World Heritage Site in 1987. The city is also famous for mole poblano, chiles en nogada and Talavera pottery. However, most of its economy is based on industry.

This was Pepe’s hometown so we met up with some of his friends.

The city of Puebla was beautiful in the day and even more so by night with all the stunning lighting.

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE:

San Miguel de Allende is a city and municipality located in the far eastern part of the state of Guanajuato in central Mexico.

Historically, the town is important as being the birthplace of Ignacio Allende, whose surname was added to the town’s name in 1826, as well as the first municipality declared independent of Spanish rule by the nascent insurgent army during the Mexican War of Independence.

However, the town waned during and after the war, and at the beginning of the 20th century was in danger of becoming a ghost town. Its Baroque/Neoclassical colonial structures were "discovered" by foreign artists who moved in and began art and cultural institutes such as the Instituto Allende and the Escuela de Bella Arts.

This attracted foreign art students, especially former U.S. soldiers studying on the G.I. Bill after the Second World War. Since then, the town has attracted a very large number of foreign retirees, artists, writers and tourists, which is shifting the area’s economy from agriculture and industry to commerce catering to outside visitors and residents.

The main attraction of the town is its well-preserved historic center, filled with buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries. This and the nearby Sanctuary of Atotonilco have been declared World Heritage Sites.

Some of our SF friends were coincidentally travelling in Central Mexico at this time so we met up in San Miguel.

GUANAJUATO:

Guanajuato is a city and municipality in central Mexico and the capital of the state of the same name.

It is located in a narrow valley, which makes the streets of the city narrow and winding. Most are alleys that cars cannot pass through, and some are long sets of stairs up the mountainsides. Many of the city’s thoroughfares are partially or fully underground. The historic center of the city has numerous small plazas and colonial-era mansions, churches and civil constructions built using pink or green sandstone.

The origin and growth of the city resulted from the discovery of minerals in the mountains surrounding it. The mines were so rich that the city was one of the most influential during the colonial period. One of the mines, La Valenciana, accounted for two-thirds of the world’s silver production at the height of its production.