A Travel Diary of Mexico City
Both of my parents immigrated from Mexico to the United States, my first language is Spanish and I grew up watching novelas and eating homemade Mexican dishes on weeknights. Although my parents did their absolute best to teach my siblings and me traditional Mexican culture, we have never visited the southern part of Mexico and I always felt like there was a huge amount of culture that I didn’t know about Mexico, this made visiting Mexico City become a top priority on my bucket list and this summer I finally visited the capital of Mexican culture, Mexico City.
Luckily, a lot of my friends and co-workers had already visited Mexico City and had tons of recommendations of where to eat, what to visit and do. Mexico City is basically divided into a conglomeration of neighborhoods (Colonias) each with a different vibe, style, and must-dos. We decided to rent an Airbnb in La Roma, because we found that it was the safest and the cutest neighborhood and got around by uber super affordable about $5-6 per ride, and walked A LOT, about 6-7 miles per day!
Day 1
Landing in an afternoon flight, Mexico City greeted us with a rainstorm, soaking us when we checked into our Airbnb but after a quick change of clothes, we were ready to explore our neighborhood for the next 5 days. La Roma is beautiful, lush green trees line the sidewalks building a canopy of shade and the architecture in the pastel buildings have tons of European influence. As we were strolled the streets being super indecisive of where to have dinner, we stumbled upon the cutest coffee shop, Cachito Mio, where we shared the most delicious almond and pear pie and really wanted to take an entire pie back home and for the next few days we created a habit of eating dessert before dinner. Someone had also recommended for us to eat small meals throughout the day in order to be able to try more dishes and although this is a genius idea, we found it hard to take some many breaks to eat because there was just so much that we wanted to see. We ended up having an amazing dinner at Maximo Bistro, and a glass of wine at Cafe Toscano.
Day 2
Frida Kahlo Museum
On our first full day there, we were transported to the 1950s by visiting La Casa Azul where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Lived and found new respect for Frida, the ultimate Latina Girlboss! If you don’t know about her, I suggest watching her documentary where she is played by Salma Hayek. Frida is such an inspirational figure to Hispanic women as she suffered so many hardships and heartbreaks but she didn’t let that define her instead she created her own image of how she wanted to world to see her. Yes, life is hard but it more about how you react to those hardships and your perspective on life
Protip: Buy your ticket to Frida Kahlo Museum in advance to avoid waiting in line!
After feeling super inspired and ready to conquer anything the world threw at us, we walked around the neighborhood of Coyoacan, where we felt very in Mexico. We followed the crowds and had Cafe de Olla (coffee with cinnamon) at Cafe El Jarocho and then stumbled upon a market in Coyoacan where we were greeted by flower stands, tons of delicious fruit, and I bought handmade huaraches and a hand embroidered top for my little sister! Looking back at our trip, out of all the neighborhoods, Coyoacan felt the most traditionally Mexican.
After a quick break in our Airbnb, we visited the Bosque de Chapultepec, a giant park in the middle of Mexico City, it is so huge that it is translated to Forrest, there is a giant lake that overlooks the downtown skyline and it is also where the Castillo de Chapultepec is at. Before visiting the castle, we researched a bit of the history of the castle and this was what we found:
History of Castillo De Chapultepec: from the culture trip:
” Named for the Nahuatl word chapoltepēc, which means ‘at the grasshopper’s hill’, it sits on what the Aztecs considered a sacred hilltop, meaning the glorious palace offers spectacular views over the city and surrounding forest. Construction began in 1775, on the orders of Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez, before being taken over by Manuel Agustín Mascaró following the departure of the original architect. This sparked rumor that Mascaró wanted to rebel against the Spanish crown although this claim remains unsubstantiated. However, the original brains behind the operation, Bernardo de Gálvez, did pass away from alleged poisoning. Eventually, after its completion and numerous attempts on the part of the Spanish Crown to sell the castle at a cut-price, Mexico City’s municipal government purchased it in 1806. Despite being abandoned during the War of Independence, the castle rose to notoriety once again when it became the site of the deaths of the Niños Héroes who died defending it in 1847 during the Mexican-American war.It still reigns as the only royal castle in North America that actually served as the residence for royalty; Mexican Emperor Maximilian I and Empress Carlota lived there from 1864. “
Across the street from the castle is the anthropology museum: the #1 must do in Mexico City according to TripAdvisor and I must agree. The Museum is huge it chronologically exhibits Mexicans history dating back all the way to the prehistoric era and progressively from the Teotihuacan, Aztec, Mayan, all of the Native American History. It is quite impressive. It was also such a great idea because we had planned to visit the Teotihuacan Pyramids the following day.
Polanco:
Mexico City has some of the coolest & super creative places to visit and eat. After a day of museum hopping we visited the coolest bookstore, El Pendulo, where we perused through Spanish books and enjoyed a macadamia nut cheesecake, un cafe con leche, and a mango margarita, we again had dessert before dinner. We ended up having dinner a block away at Catamundi, a super hip international cuisine restaurant/market. We had the beef empanadas, meatballs with Pomodoro salsa and pappardelle with pistachio pesto. Everything was amazing!
Day 3:
About an hour away from Mexico City is the Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan, where we learned all about the amazing pyramids, we climbed to the top of the pyramid of the sun and the views are completely worth it.
Protip: Take an Uber to the North Central Bus Terminal in Mexico City and buy a round trip to Teotihhuacan for $80 pesos. This Blog has very detailed instructions.
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