Mexico City- Walking around town...

Hi guys.....this is gonna be the last blog entry about our 2015 trip to Ciudad de Mexico...its been fun sharing this magnificent metropolis with you....we'll be going back at least once in 2016 and I'll bring back some more neat stuff for you guys to ponder while enthralled with my blog!!! 
This blog entry is just some random pics of stuff going on around the city.....things we saw or experienced....there's really no cohesive theme for the montage.....just give ya a glimpse into whats happening.......

 Quiet little neighborhood backstreet in the residential neighborhood of Condesa....

The Eco-bike rental people are everywhere in the city...we saw thousands of these bikes in racks all over....

Tana made a new friend down by the Zocolo....I believe that the Zocolo in Ciudad de Mexico is the largest public plaza in the world!!

Beautiful old church......right in the middle of downtown!!

Fountains everywhere throughout the city....and they are all in working order!!

Another peaceful place to sit and people watch.....

El Monumento a la Revolucion... This magnificent Art Deco Monument commemorates the Mexican Revolution 1910-1920 and is the tallest triumphal arch in the world....220 feet high. The structure is also the final resting place for the great heroes of the Mexican Revolution....

Pancho Villa 

Francisco Madero

Plutarco Calles

Venustiano Carranza

and

Lazaro Cardenas 

Pancho Villa's final resting place.....

La Plaza de la Revolucion de Mexico seen from the top of the monument...

The thing in the middle that looks like a ladder is a glass elevator shaft that transports people from the monument's basement to the top of the cupola.....

 Skyline from the top of the monument....

Can't remember where I took this shot...????

We ran into this outing for a clown school while walking around in the neighborhood of Polanco...these aspiring clowns are out in the public for the purpose of practicing their chosen craft...they were really an exciting over the top group of young, middle aged, and vintage folks.....lots of fun...

Don't ya luv it...???

After visiting with us for a while...they took off down the way to brighten the day of someone else...!!

This guy is a street magician.....good too!

Down on the left side of the street you'll see a red awning prtruding onto the sidewalk....that's an Argentine Churrasco sidewalk cafe....one of our favorite spots in Mexico City.... 

Street view from our favorite table in the Argentine Churrasco joint...the office building across the street is the Headquarters for the Mexican social Security System...

These guys would come by the Argentine joint a put on a show for tips....they were good!!!!! notice the guitar player playing the tambourine with his right foot!!

 Guess its time to shut this puppy down.... you guys take care, be safe, hug your luved ones, seeya soon....

la paz

Mexico City Murals.....Mexican Muralism

I believe that most of us humans have an inner appreciation and hunger and affiliation for art. As kids we all draw pictures and get mom and grandma and aunt Minnie to stick em up on the refrigerator.....all school classrooms are festooned with examples of the young artists endeavors. Most all of us relish our art and it returns to us a sense of well being that accompanies us throughout our lives. 
Someone once said that art is in the eye of the beholder....or was it beauty? Suffice to say that one person's idea of artistic expression could easily portend an other's idea of palp! 
In this series of blogs chronicling our recent trip to Ciudad de Mexico we took a look at the street art and at various expressions the architectural artistry of this magnificent city. 
Probably the greatest expression of the true Mexican art form is muralism.....why? you ask.....because for the reason that it was created....To educate the mostly illiterate masses of the Mexican people who survived the 1910-1920 Civil War that brought the end to the Mexican Dictator Portfirio Diaz. 
At the end of the Revolution the Mexican Government commissioned three leading artists Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orzco, and David Alfaro Siguueiros. These men were referred to as the Los tres grandes and from about 1920-1950 their mission was to cultivate a non-European art form that cultivated the style and identified the Mexican Identity. 
In Ciudad de Mexico there are thousands examples of this art form. The renown artists works are in the public buildings and museums.... its on the buildings, on the street, on walls....Its everywhere.....some is exceptional....some is inspired...all of it is good...!!!
We only got to see a minuscule sampling of mural art on this trip but when we go back in December 2016 the main focus of our trip will be seeking out examples of this magnificent art form in one of the grandest cities in the world!!   

Los tres Grandes:

Later Dudes.......peace to ya all......

Mexico City, Teotihuacan and the Avenida de Muerte, Avenue of Death and La Grupa....underground restaurant..!!!!

About 30 miles NE of Mexico City are the ruins of the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas. At its pinnacle there were 125,000 people living here making it the 6th largest city in the world at that time! This is the most visited archaeological site in Mexico. Here you will be able see, touch, climb, examine, feel, and experience the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon and of course stroll down the Avenue of Death where untold numbers of people were marched up the pyramids and sacrificed.  Anthropologists are uncertain of the ethnicity of the inhabitants of the city....no really knows who built it although the Aztecs claimed it somewhere along the line. Its a remarkable place that oozes ancient mystic spiritualism.

Pyramid of the Sun...

The infamous Avenida de Muerte.....individuals were marched down this avenue to the pyramids and sacrificed....thousands of them! the buildings along the sides are residential and commercial structures and government offices.

Shot of the big Pyramid from a residential subdivision....this city had multi-floor apartment compounds to house its population...now we are talking about 100 BC to about 250 AD here....visionaries wouldn't you say??

Hanging out in a pre-Colombian meso-American neighborhood in Mexico....cooool!

With Tana here is Alex our guide when we were in Mexico city. He took us all over the city and really showed us the sights.... 

Adios Teotihuacan......

It was early afternoon when we headed back to Mexico city and we were all hungry...!! A few years ago when I was here, I discovered a totally underground restaurant....built in a cave underground and asked Alex if he knew where it was....he thought he did and off we went into the hills.... after driving around for a while.....Wahallla!!!!!

This sign is all you see when you finally find the place...

Into the Abyss......

When I mentioned an underground restaurant in a cave in the hither lands of central Mexico did you think that we'd be sitting around a campfire in the dirt??  Upscale BABY!!

We enjoyed hot fresh Mexican grasshoppers on steaming hot blue corn tortillas, a wonderful nopal cactus and pumpkin soup and the Mayan favorite...Puerco Pibil, a spicy pork dish with a mole sauce...oh yes cervazas frio..... Yummy!

Until next time....la paz!

Mexico City-Street Art

Ciudad de Mexico is a magical gigantic city....in the last few blogs I've tried to show you around this wonderful megalopolis and feature a few of its many wonders....today lets just wander around and look at few examples of the magnificent street art that is all over the city.......

This was the very first example of street art that we encountered about a two block walk from our hotel....referring to it as magnificent would be an understatement....!!!

You ain't seen nuthin' yet folks.....c'mon....

This piece  is placed on a sidewalk in a neighborhood all by itself. 

It is bronze and about 20 feet tall ......

Another example of exquisite bronze artistry..!!

This is one of my favorites...kinda reminiscent of the dancing Fiddler On the Roof...

I love this guy!!! He is on the sidewalk in front of the Mexican Federal Social Security Office Headquarters...probably waiting for his check!!!

These two bronze couches are another one of me and Tana's favorites.....

Cool, Cool, Cool......!!!

This is a bench at a busy intersection where you can sit down while waiting for the light to change....

This piece was place here in 1883!!

This is the companion piece to the one above...it too was placed here in the 1880's.....

Not all of the street art was inanimate .....!!

Not one piece of any of the public street art that we admired was defaced with graffiti, gang crap, paint, lovers inscriptions or any of the other vandalism that we see all over the monuments and public art pieces and structures in the United States.... Hmmmmm.. wonder what that's all about?

This is  La Catrina, the most beloved and revered 

Grand Dame of Death, the symbol for the Mexican celebration of Dia de Muertos.

This bronze pays homage to the Indio Yaqui... Yaqui Indians who 
occupied much of north west Mexico around Sonora State...

Nice huh???

This is a really nice piece....my guess is that it is marble ? 
Its 25-30 feet tall...

 Now this is some street art!!!! It  honors the heroes of Mexican Independence.....Pancho Villa is interred here....

I can't remember who this guy is...but he has one kick-ass statue!!!

The Contemporary or Modern Art side of things....

Pretty nice huh?

A homage to Frida Kahlo......

I think this piece is honoring the indigenous Aztec people .... 
There are hundreds maybe thousands more examples of this type of art on the streets of Ciudad de Mexico...when we go back we'll spend a couple of days searching for more....
Before we call it a day.....

One last pic.....for luck....

Take care my friends...peace to us all.....seeya