Reisefieber

CDMX - day 1

Home-made breakfast, Uber to Biblioteca Vasconcelos. This is a unique place, it's an architectural landmark, a gigantic building, and weird way of books, art and modern design in quite an unsual way.

From the library we walked to a Michellin star holding tacos restaurant El Califa de Leon.

Never saw a standing place with a star before. But Taquería El Califa de León has a star since 2024. Amazing tacos with beefsteak and filet. This is also officially the cheapest Michelin star restaurant I ever ate in. Moments of great happiness. Today I discovered that Mexican pigeons are half or quarter of the size of the pigeons we have in Europe and the Middle East. They are cute, they are pigeons, they are really small. Where was I. Yes. After lunch we headed to Plaza Garibaldi, which is probably more popular during the evening when music is playing, but we got the visual part of it at least.

Shakira was about to play at the Zolaco same day in the evening, so the police started closures and security measures including checking bags. Her concert was financed by Corona, the beer. This resulted in thousands of people in the city center wearing yellow paper corwns. Quite an phenomenon. But anyways we checked out the Post Office and Museum, the Palacio Postal. The beautiful building was inagurated in 1907 and is serving as an active post office even today. Exhibitions cover the history of the postal services in mexico, and stamp printing.

Next: The Central Bank of Mexico Building. The Banco de México building in the historic center was originally constructed between 1903 and 1905, not as a central bank, but for the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York. It was later adapted to become the headquarters of Mexico’s central bank after Banco de México was founded in 1925. The building, understandably, has very strict security, but it's free to visit. The vault was empty, too bad. The two exhibitions hosted in the building are about the history of money and about the central bank's role. Very impressive building.

Here is a trick about the Palacio de Bellas Artes. There is an excellent viewpoint from SEARS just opposite of the building. Go up to the 8th floor, queue up for the cafe, sit down. Since they are really slow, get up, look at the building from the balcony, and casually walk out since no-one came to take the order. This is what we did. We didn't really plan it like this, but we both timed out.

Arriving in Mexico City aka CDMX (Ciudad de México)

After checkout from my hotel in Puebla I took an Uber to CAPU (Centro de Autobuses Puebla) an took the Red Star line to CDMX. Estrella Roja is nothing like Grayhoud. It's a luxorious bus with overly comfortable chairs comparable with a business class seating on a flight. Each bus also has a toilet (very clean). The drivers are wearing uniforms. Very good experience.

From Taxquiña station I took an Uber to our address in La Condesa neighborhood. Renata, my friend from New York arrived 2 minutes before me, this is what I call good timing! We were hanging out, had lunch, did some grocey shopping in Walmart and started planning our week in CDMX.

Cholula

Cholula is a town not far from Puebla and it's definitely worth a visit. My Uber driver dropped me near the entrance of the arheological site where I bout my ticket to the museum and the pyramid. Hot day, cold mango with some flavoured salt as a perfect snack. The Great Pyramid of Cholula was not built beneath a natural hill, although it looks like it. The “hill” is the pyramid itself. On the pictures it's a very small part of it that was uncovered and researched my archeologists. Construction began around the 2nd century BC, and over time the structure was enlarged in multiple building phases, with new pyramidal layers built over earlier ones, eventually creating an enormous monument. After the site declined and was no longer maintained, the outer surfaces eroded and became covered with soil and vegetation, so the pyramid gradually came to resemble a natural hill. By the time the Spanish arrived, it no longer clearly looked like a pyramid, which is one reason a church was later built on top. A church on top of an ancient pyramid.

After my descent I waled to Zocalo and meandered in the courtyard of a Spanish convent: Ex-Convento de San Gabriel, one of the oldest colonial religious complexes in Mexico. It was founded by the Franciscans in 1529, built in the 16th century on the site of an earlier temple, and became an important center of early evangelization in central Mexico.