DF's Historic Center

...Guess who has a camera again? (Thanks, papa!)

With the rainy season ending, and a more open schedule, I'm able to spend much more time outdoors these days. Earlier this week, I walked to the Historic Center of DF to take some pictures of the famous buildings and visit some of the 16th, 17th, and 18th century churches.

Parroquia de San Fernando, a nearly 300-year-old church nestled at the end of a quiet side-street.

Iglesia de San Juan de Dios. This church's construction began over 400 years ago.

Built in the early 1700's, the Parroquia de la Santa Veracruz is in a state of disrepair, and
the building itself is actually crooked due to the church being built on soft ground and years
of earthquakes shifting  the land. The inside of the church is simple in comparison to some
of the other churches, but still has the archways and ceilings adorned in golden decorations.

El Palacio de Correos de Mexico, or the Postal "Palace." It was built not too long
ago, in the early 1900's, and is a fully-functioning (and incredibly fancy) post office.

In the Postal Palace. I've never wanted to work in a post office so bad before. (Yep, those are marble floors).

El Templo y Ex-Convento de Santo Domingo, a church built in 1773 (still older than the USA).

Inside the Santo Domingo church. It's so eerily quiet here, I felt like each footstep would echo throughout the church.

Iglesia de la Profesa--yet another 300-year-old church, off of the pedestrian street Francisco I Madero.

Inside the Iglesia de la Profesa. There are no half-assed churches in DF, not even the smaller ones.

The first Franciscan Temple in Mexico City, the Iglesia de San Francisco, is nearly 500-years-old.

The inside of the Iglesia de San Francisco, complete with the golden apse and huge religious paintings on the walls.

Bellas Artes on a beautiful November day. On the bottom right of the building, see that thing
that looks like a giant spider/nope/nope combination? That's not usually there. Thank God. 

Easily the most iconic Cathedral in Mexico City, the Metropolitan Cathedral is huge! (Probably because
they started building it in 1573 and then spent the next 240 years adding sections on to it). Fun fact: stones
from the ruins of the Templo Mayor, which is directly beside/behind the cathedral, were used to make the
original cathedral way back in 1573. Cortes even made the Aztecs build his cathedral with the ruins of their city.

A section of the inside of the Metropolitan Cathedral. I got in trouble for taking a picture with worshiping people in it...

Another section inside the Metropolitan Cathedral. Wowza!

This walk around the Historic Center ate up several hours of my morning, and then I had to run off to work, but there is much more to this area. I'm sure I'll be heading back there soon enough, as it's one of my favorite areas to go for a walk!

Chapultepec Park, Section One: Castle, Zoo, some Monuments

In Mexico City, there is no park more famous or loved than Chapultepec Park. This park is always bustling with every type of person: parents with small children on their way to the zoo, school tours of all age groups wanting to see the castle and monuments, joggers looking to get in a nice run, couples out for a romantic stroll, and of course, tourists hoping to see all the famous historical sites and museums that this park has to offer. Chapultepec offers something for everyone. The more popular paths are lined with vendors and their stands, selling food, souvenirs, miniature paintings, and even plants. The less popular paths, however, are very quiet and well-suited for those who seek a bit of peace within the metropolis.

One sunny September morning, I visited a portion of Section One of the park. Chapultepec Park has three sections, and visiting them all could take well up to a week. I had 5-6 hours to visit the castle, zoo, and some monuments in Section One.

Upon entering the park at the Gate of the Lions, the first monument is called Altar a la
Patria, or Monumento a los Niños  Heroes. It is dedicated to the six young military cadets
 who died defending the Chapultepec Castle in 1947. The center sculpture is actually a
mausoleum where the remains of the six cadets and Colonel Santiago Xicotencatl are buried. 

A view of the castle atop the hill

Many of the interior castle walls are covered in murals depicting the history of Mexico.

In one wing of the castle, all of the original furniture and decorations are still in place.

Originally built as a watchtower for the Mexican Military, this structure later served as an observatory.

If you are interested in the castle's history...here is a very choppy, rough-draft, short version of the story:

Construction began in 1785, as ordered in 1784 by Viceroy Matias de Galvez. Following the Viceroy's death soon after, his son, Count Bernardo de Galvez, ordered construction to continue. However, when he died two years later, the Spanish court/crown ordered architects to stop the project because they were uneasy about the pro-independence movement in Mexico. The construction was abandoned and the castle remained unoccupied until 1841, years after the Mexican Revolution and Independence, when it was used to train army officers. In 1847, the U.S. invaded Mexico, and the castle was defended (and lost) by the soldiers and cadets who were studying at the academy during that time. After the conclusion of the war where Mexico lost half of its northern territory to the U.S., the castle was returned to the Military Academy. Starting in 1859, the castle was used to house military generals. During the French Intervention in 1864, the castle was used to house Archduke Maximilian, who was named emperor of Mexico shortly following his arrival. Maximilian had the castle's construction fully completed. Eventually, however, due to his inability to please either political party, the Archduke/Emperor was executed by Benito Juarez in 1867. From 1876 to 1883, the castle served as the grounds for an astronomical, meteorological, and magnetic observatory. In 1881, Porfirio Diaz had another wing added to the castle for the Military Academy. A few years later in 1877, Porfirio Diaz was made President of Mexico, and he adopted the castle as a summer residence. The castle served as the military academy training / presidential manor until 1917; and as solely a presidential manor until 1939, when President Lazaro Cardenas proclaimed the castle as the headquarters for the National History Museum.

After leaving the castle and all its history behind, I made my way to the zoo. Passing one of the lakes on my way, I made a mental note to try out the paddle-boating there sometime.

At the zoo: I'm sure you've all seen about 300 million zoo pictures, so I'll only add two--black bears getting ready to play-fight and lions being lazy. But, the Chapultepec Zoo is really large, and has tons of different species!

Exiting the zoo and taking the long way back to the exit, I walked along a quiet path and passed many fountains and a couple monuments.

Idyllic Chapultepec

Though I did cover a lot of ground in the park, I missed out on 6 museums in Section One, as well as botanical gardens, the Korean Gazebo, Gandhi Park, the lakes, other monuments...well, there's a lot more for me to see. Until another day, Chapultepec Park!

Templo Mayor

One of the many notable things in Mexico City's Zocalo is the Templo Mayor. The temple, from the Aztec/Mexica empire, was discovered only just 35 years ago (1978). It isn't quite as old as some of the other ruins outside of D.F., but 650 year old city being discovered only recently is impressive indeed. One of the best things about this area is that the artifacts are very well preserved--many of them still have quite a bit of the original paint!

The Templo Mayor was expanded on 7 different occasions, and on 5 additional occasions, only the main facade was expanded. So, as you walk through the site, you actually get to walk through all the layers. Each time they expanded, they completely covered the temple in a mix of mud and volcanic rock, and then literally built a bigger and taller temple on top of the old one. It was huge at the height of the empire (about 150 feet tall and much wider), but when the Spaniards arrived, they demolished most of it. Only the middle layer remains. (The top was destroyed, and the lower layers exist underground, where they can't be seen). When you first walk in, the temple doesn't seem to be particularly impressive at all.

As you continue, however, you'll see the well-preserved serpent and frog carvings. Serpents and frogs were very important in Aztec culture, both in architecture and in offerings. The frog altars were representative of the god "Tlaloc," or the god of rain and storms.

Continuing on, you'll come to a stone monolith of a dismembered Coyolxauhqui. The shortened version of the story goes like this: the goddess Coatlique got magically pregnant by putting a ball of feathers next to her womb. When her daughter, Coyolxauqui, found out, she conspired with her other siblings to kill their mother. However, the baby in Coatlicue's womb somehow spoke to her and told her that he would defend her. The baby, Huitzilopochtli, was born a grown man. He decapitated Coyolxauhqui, and later went on to become the god of war and sun.

Coyolxauhqui, queen of sibling rivalry.

The next point of interest would be the area where 8 mysterious statues were found leaning against the stairs. No one knows for sure their significance, but the most commonly accepted theory is that they are representative of Coyolxauqui's siblings.

Later, we come to an area with two shrines. The shrine on the south side (right, in the picture below) was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, god of war and sun. In the back, which unfortunately we can't see, there is an opening to enter the shrine. Inside, there was an image of the god. The main activity in this shrine was human sacrifice. People were sacrificed on a black tezontle sacrificial stone, and their hearts offered as divine food to the sun. (Yeeeesh, this culture was so brutal).

The shrine on the north side (left, in the picture above) was dedicated to Tlaloc, god of rain and storms. Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc were the two patron deities of the Aztec/Mexica culture. Outside of the Tlaloc shrine, there is a polychrome sculpture of a chac mool bearing the attributes of Tlaloc and still retaining much of its original color. This chac mool dates back to 1350.

Next, we find the House of the Eagles. Only the elite were given access to this building, and this is where they held many of their religious ceremonies (meditation, prayer, penitence, offerings, etc.). Offering blood was likely a common activity here. This was another very well-preserved room, and you can see a lot of the original paint on the base-reliefs.

Also in the House of the Eagles, two statues representing Mictlantecutli (god of the underworld) were found. Yet another strange concept of this culture to me, only people who died a natural death went to the underworld. Dying in war or by sacrifice was the way people could reach the celestial levels. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, is the fact that self-sacrifice was rather common. Now, we don't know for sure what going to the underworld entailed in Aztec/Mexica religion. Nowadays, we think of the underworld as the firey chasm of Hell. It may have been quite different for the Aztecs/Mexicas, but we really can only guess. What we do know is that the underworld had 9 levels, earth had one level, and there were 13 celestial levels. Beyond that, it's all just theory.

The next notable element would be the Tzompantli, or skull wall, which symbolized the region of the dead, Mictlampa. There were 240 stone skulls that made up this building, and the inside was for offerings.

After that, you'll come to the Red Temple, which was probably for leaving offerings. Some of the original red, white, yellow, and blue paint can still be seen.

The Templo Mayor used to be part of a large city, but it's all that's left after the Spaniards came and destroyed everything. In fact, the Metropolitan Cathedral in the Zocalo was literally built on top of other buildings of the city, including the ball court, the sun temple, and the temple of Ehecatl. Ruins of the city are still being found today! Not too long ago, when they were digging for the metro stations, another small offering temple was found, and it is displayed inside the Pino Suarez metro station, since they couldn't move or destroy it.

There is also a Templo Mayor museum, which takes a good 2 hours to tour. The best-preserved artifacts are housed in the museum, including offerings, statues, monoliths, weapons, decorations, explanatory figures and diagrams, and much more.

A representation of how the Templo Mayor was expanded

Mictlantecutli--the god of the underworld. His liver is exposed, because the
Aztecs/Mexicas believed the liver was the source of all evil in humans.



An eagle-warrior statue





There's that Coyolxauhqui again, in all her dismembered-ness.

 

Tlaloc monolith



A super well-preserved eagle sculpture



An offering

 

Another, much less creepy offering

 As brutal, gruesome, and gorey as the Aztec/Mexica culture could be, their history and culture were truly amazing, and so interesting to see and learn about. It's one of my favorite things about living in D.F.--actually seeing and visiting the things I'd only briefly learned about in school, and continuing to learn a lot more about Mexico's history. The Templo Mayor is especially great for those who aren't fluent in Spanish, because all of the signs have an English translation (a bit scarce in other archaelogical zones).