It was a beautiful morning, sunny although still a bit cool (13C) at 8am. We got up a bit earlier to try to get to the 9am performance of the pipe organs in the Metropolitan Cathedral. The barricades were coming down so it was easy to enter the cathedral. We were a bit early (about 8:40am) so asked the police at the door about the timing. They said it was at 10am and that we should line up at 9:30.
So we went back to the hotel and had breakfast, returning to the cathedral at 9:30. We then realized our question earlier had got lost in translation (literally) and it was mass that started at 10am. Oh well. The organist was playing (presumably having started at 9am), so at least we got to hear the pipe organs, which was our main objective.
We then headed over to Miguel Lerdo de Tejada Library to check out the mural by Vlady Kibalchich Rusakov. Mexican muralism is big thing in CDMX, and I had mapped out some of the key sites to visit.
We had to show ID to enter; they were okay with viewing our passport scans on our phones. Most visitors are academics here for the library. They didn’t mind us as tourists, in fact they were super polite and keen that we were here!
Vlady’s murals are ginormous, covering three full wallls of the library, almost 1,750 m² according to the blurb onsite. We walked around and took our pics, trying not to disturb the academic folks.
A quick change of clothes at our hotel (it was about 22C now) and then we were back out touristing.
Walked over to Museo de la Secretaría de Hacienda, aka Antiguo Palacio del Arzobispada, aka SHCP Museum of Art. We were there yesterday and were thrown off by its aliases. It’s just across the Zócalo from us, much easier with the barricades removed. Anyways, it has amazing contemporary art, we were quite impressed. It was free to enter, and we only saw a handful other visitors.
Next was Secretaria de Educación Pública, aka SEP Site Museum, aka Convento de la Encarnación. This houses a lot of murals by the big three (Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiro), commissioned by the SEP. I really like the style, they could all be the cover of an Ayn Rand book. This was also free to enter and not busy at all.
We were getting hungry so had lunch at a random taco stall. The stall was really busy but they squeezed in a couple more stools for us. It was mmm good.
Tried yet again to get into the Palacio Postal. There was a long line-up to enter, filled with people waiting to do official post office stuff, so we decided to skip it.
Last stop for the day was Mercado de Artesanías La Ciudadela, for some souvenir shopping.
Had dinner at Paxia, which is atop the Hilton about a five minute walk from us. It was really good.
Walked back through the Zócalo, and called it a night.
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