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| Piedra Del Sol |
Mexico City, Week 2 (April 11th to April 16th)
I’m impressed with the ease of using Mexico City’s public
transportation and subway system. It is efficient
and extensive for 3 pesos (about 22 cents). At the beginning of the week I visited two of
the places I’ve anticipated the most: the National Anthropology Museum and the
Basilica of Guadalupe that house two of the most important icons of Mexican
national identity. The Piedra del Sol (also known as the Aztec
Calendar) on display in the Museum of Anthropology is incredible, I literally
got goose bumps when I saw it and it is much larger than I anticipated.
Visiting the new and old Basilicas of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe was also an
unforgettable experience, especially seeing the 481-year-old image of the
Virgin on the tilma.
At the beginning of the week I took a bus to the
pyramids of Teotihuacan and climbedto the summit of the Pyramid of the Sun
where the entire valley of Mexico was visible. I then went to see the
remarkable murals in the Palacio de Bellas Artes by the muralists Diego Rivera,
Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Also, the Antiguo
Colegio de San Idelfonso boasts murals by Orozco, Rivera and Fernando Leal.
The city has so much to offer in terms of museums, culture, food and
history; the number of sites to see and things to do is seemingly
endless. This week I visited: Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Palacio de
Bellas Artes, Antiguo Colegio de San Idelfonso, Teotihuacan and the Colonia
Roma, Xochimilco, the city of Puebla, and the new and old Basilicas of Nuestra
Senora de Guadalupe.
