This is the plaza outside our front door. The fountain is called Fuente de Cibeles and is a replica of one in Madrid. The traffic circle, Plaza Villa de Madrid, is where Oaxaca, Durango, Medellín and El Oro streets converge in Colonia Roma. It’s never congested, no one honks, it’s clean and lovely and surrounded by culinary delights.
We had a most excellent tour today, really, the guide was wonderful and we both went away feeling we had learned a lot and enjoyed every minute of it.
The tour met in front of the cathedral but since it was covered in scaffolding and fenced off from the square, I got an inset off the internet to give some idea of the vast scale of the plaza. The other building surrounding the plaza were decorated to the nines.
One exit from the plaza.
Here’s our Guillermo, a perfect guide.
What was once the principal pyramid, the Templo Mayor, of the Mexica people. The temple was added to, one layer on top of another, seven times over the course of 200+ years. We heard a Lot about human sacrifices, oh yes Guillermo assured us, human sacrifice was for sure a thing.
Plaza de Santo Domingo. There’s a lot here including this first church of the Dominicans who were in charge of the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico, called the Mexican Inquisition here. The building on the right was the headquarters of the Inquisition for nearly 300 years and then became the central focus of all commerce in Mexico.
During a short break in the tour Cynthia got a super-fancy chamoyada – blended ice with chamoy syrup, lime, and sugar. You can most commonly get them with fruit blended in too, and some chili for a kick.
Another long and apocryphal story involving this building lavishly covered inside and out with talavera tile from Puebla.
The main post office, still in service, glorious from the outside, and according to Guillermo legendarily inefficient.
Filming out on the street. That’s our Guillermo in green raising his shades for a better look.
We ate a very late lunch at a local café offering traditional dishes which was quite fun. In the evening Cynthia went to the small market across the street and brought back plenty of tasty treats for the next few days. Back at the condo looking down from one of the windows you can see the tree-lined streets below. It’s quite amazing how many trees there are in this dense city.
