Travel Journal
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MEXICO CITY: La Ciudad Maravillosa
January 2026
By Sandra Bertrand
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All photos by Sandra Bertrand unless otherwise credited.
Mexico City (CDMX) is populous, with almost 24 million in the metro region. In the early 1990s, it was rated the most polluted of world cities — unfiltered water should be avoided. It sits at 7,400 feet above sea level which may cause stress to your body over several days, and it resides within the Ring of Fire, with 75% of all the active volcanoes on earth. Ninety percent of the world’s earthquakes occur along its edges. Since 1985’s 8.1 temblor of September 19, the city’s two other major quakes of 2017 and 2022 have occurred exactly on the same day. Why go? Well, simply, because it’s one of the most marvelous cities in the world. It’s lush and lovely, with a climate hovering in the 70s in early November, air to breathe growing cleaner by the day, and jaw-dropping 2200-year-old, pre-Hispanic ruins, including the world’s third-tallest pyramid. Its Centro Historico square is a massive wonder to behold; its 170 plus museums cover a content range from 3,000 years before the Spanish invasion to the present day. Its cuisine is an intense complex of flavors, with sauces of fruits, nuts, chiles and spices, plus an international barrage of chefs to satisfy every taste. |
Dias de Los Muertos Harp Player
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Dog Handlers, Plaza Luis Cabrera
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So, let’s begin.
Our Delta flight from JFK arrived at Benito Juarez International Airport without a glitch. Our Uber car cost a whopping $15 US dollars for a five-mile drive from the airport to our Airbnb — Ubers remained our primary means of transport for the next ten days. One subway trip was the exception, with modern cars, colorful murals, and separate car options for women and children. Our trio included Joanne, my life partner and travel guru, Toni, who we recently met through a series of bridge classes, and me. I was already taking mental notes as we sped past Roma’s Plaza Cibeles traffic circle, the fertility goddess with her lion-driven carriage gleaming in the midday sun. As we collected our bags, I decided not to point out the slabs of sidewalk that appeared still uprooted from an earlier quake. Our airy abode on Sinaloa Street was waiting.
Later we grabbed an outside table at Contramar, a “see and be seen” seafood restaurant that provided ceviche Acapulco style with avocados and chiles and a thimbleful of wine for exorbitant prices. (Beer choices are cheap and plentiful everywhere and often the budget-conscious choice.) The night was balmy, the moon full, and the sidewalk full of canines with their proud owners. I left the people-gazing to others with such a well-behaved variety of dogs to catch my eye. |
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The next morning, hungry for a full breakfast, we headed for Roma’s Bella Aurora where the spicy omelet chilaquiles made with fried corn tortilla chips simmered in red or green salsa was a real wakeup call. Street food vendors crowded the corners with elote, the charred corn cobs slathered with chili powder, lime and cotija cheese, but caution won the morning. The upstairs seating provided a haven of tropical greenery. With wobbly legs undoubtedly due to thinner air, we opted for wiling away another hour.
Plaza Luis Cabrera unearthed more than one dog run with shuttle cars for the handlers to transport their charges to and from their daily constitutional. If a stray crashed the party, I didn’t recognize one. Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo’s highly popular residence in the Coyoacan section, is a must-see. Its walls of intense blue, offset by pots of orange marigolds, are an open invitation. The artifacts of an artist’s life well lived despite her infirmities are lovingly preserved. Workshop ramps enabled her to navigate when wheelchair bound. It’s easy to imagine Diego Rivera and Kahlo entertaining surrealist Andre Breton and exiles like Leon Trotsky within these corridors of light.
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Chilaquiles Omelet, Bella Aurora
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Frida Kahlo Mural, Coyoacan
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Girl, Museo Frida Kahlo, Coyoacan
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Studio Wheelchair, Museo Frida Kahlo, Coyoacan
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A half block away, Cochinita Country Restaurant is a rambling but cozy house for chicken tortilla soup and tacos. A piano player was on hand, banging out standards like “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” on her tinny instrument. After each selection she bowed, her hands locked in prayer position. Nearby, the Trotsky House Museum provides a sobering walkthrough of Leon Trotsky’s (a prominent critic of Joseph Stalin) rooms, including the bullet-ridden bedroom walls from the first assassination attempt. He was later murdered (on Stalin’s orders) in an adjoining study. The burial site can be viewed within the rear yard, and a small gift shop sold caps with the Russian star which Joanne purchased on a whim.
Piano Player, Cochinita Country Restaurant, Coyoacan
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Gravesite, Leon Trotsky and Family
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Not ready to surrender the day’s end, we lingered back in our Roma neighborhood over Negronis, soaking up whatever new sensations presented themselves. Two tiny hawkers presented themselves at our outside table with an assortment of trinkets. The smaller ones can pluck at the heartstrings of foreigners, leaving one to wonder if this enterprise has been hammered into them from infancy.
Puerto Prendes is a cavernous seafood restaurant with a tropical movie set vibe at night. The menu featured abalone steaks, Peruvian ceviche and once again, salsas for every tastebud. The next morning, anxious to catch Bazaar Sabado (Saturday) in neighboring San Angel, we fortified ourselves with lavender and blueberry scones from our neighborhood panaderia. Toni played our delivery girl for several mornings, making a morning stroll for these delectable delicacies. San Jacinto Plaza was a kaleidoscope of vendors — masks, leather goods, pottery and alebrijes, the painted miniature animals from Oaxaca, dazzle the eye. I purchased a tiny porcupine, grasshopper and cat to fit in my handbag, and Joanne, in more serious pursuit, bought a contour painting of a horse’s head. Grabbing an available seat, we watched a show of middle-aged folk dancers doing their best over static-ridden speakers. Nearby, a converted mansion for the Bazaar offered more upscale goods but the crowd rush sent us back outdoors for a needed lunch break.
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Folk Dancers, Bazaar Sabado, San Angel
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Cluny Restaurant is the city’s first creperie, its rear wall adorned with a copy of Renoir’s Luncheon Party. Mushroom crepes and a bottle of Terra Vega Sauvignon Blanc were a soothing reprieve, as was the service. The wait staff we encountered everywhere were filled with undeniable warmth. Whether or not a result of our own joie de vivre, we were especially grateful as gringas.
Interior, Cluny Restaurant, San Angel
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Musicians, Bazaar Sabado, San Angel
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Museo Carmen, Exterior, San Angel
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I can’t say if our post-lunch visit to Museo Carmen was the perfect digestif. The church complex was never an actual convent but a repository for a collection of 18th century religious paintings and icons. Rewarding enough, but the array of mummified corpses in the crypt will make you grateful for a visit to the rear garden before departure. Life and death are inseparable partners in Mexican folklore; wherever we ventured, remnants of El Dia de Los Muertos celebrations still lingered.
Sunday morning was no sleep-in affair. We had purchased tickets for a 9:30 a.m. performance of Ballet Folklorico at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. From the group's founding by Amalia Hernandez in 1952, by decade's end the group had grown to a fifty-piece ensemble. Dancers with their whirling skirts were like a profusion of butterflies caught in the twirling hoops of their caballeros. The glorious performance was undeniable, but the real wakeup call was the main stage hall. The art nouveau grand glass curtain, commissioned from New York’s Louis C. Tiffany workshop, contains a million opalescent glass pieces! The belle epoque Palacio with its white Carrara marble façade and orange dome seduces the eye, as if all the wealth of Mexico was concentrated in one spot. That was obviously dictator Porfirio Diaz’s intent when he began construction of this opera house in 1904. After the Mexican Revolution and Obregon’s take over as president in 1920, work was completed.
No greater chronicler of the country’s rich history exists than muralist Diego Rivera. And if a single mural could illustrate his genius at work, Sunday Afternoon Dream in the Alameda Park would win my vote. When the 1985 earthquake destroyed the Hotel Del Prado but not the mural, Museo Mural Diego Rivera was built across the street to house it. A who’s who of Mexico’s history is played out, with townspeople cavorting amidst the chaos. It’s enthralling. |
Glass Curtain, Interior, Palacio de Belles Artes
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Detail, "Sunday Afternoon Dream in the Alameda Park" by Muralist Diego Rivera
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Marble Sculpture 'The Virile Age" by André-Joseph Allar (Palacio de Belles Artes)
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Only blocks away, Templo Mayor, the sacred shrine of the Aztec empire, lies in wait. Entering the 3-acre complex of ruins, ringed by a series of ropes and pathways, is a disconcerting affair. Surrounded by a vast metropolis, we are trampling over the bones of countless human stories exposed in the midday sun. Iconic serpents are carved into the stone, as well as a wall of skulls of victims from frequent conquests. The individuality of humankind is easily discernible. Facial bones reveal prominent cheeks on some, with foreheads of various sizes. Even more enlightening is the fact this 14th century site was unearthed accidentally in 1978 by a group of telephone repairmen!
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We head for El Zocalo, one of the world’s largest squares. Once the Aztec ceremonial city of Tenochtitlan, the air is filled with incense smoke and bursts of firecrackers. Toni scurries toward a guru in Indian headdress who sprinkles sage on his subject amidst his incantations. Perhaps he’s a reincarnation of an Aztecan shaman, but I opt instead for the dark recesses of Catedral Metropolitana. There is certainly enough iconography of the saints to impress. Yet even a cursory dive into New World history shows that Spanish conquistadors often built churches with the stones from defeated empires nearby — in this case, the neighboring Templo Mayor.
One of the best windups after a walk through the upheaval of centuries is a cocktail break. The Zocalo Hotel’s Rooftop Bar is close by and provides an overview of the square. An Uber back to Roma took us through narrow streets, jammed with enough guitar shops to supply the entire continent of Mariachi bands.
Monday, when many museums were closed, seemed the preferred option for our visit to Teotihuacan.* Little could we have anticipated a precipitous drop in the temperatures, coupled with high winds. Nevertheless, the chance to visit an ancient city from approximately A.D. 600, with the third largest pyramid in the world, would hardly give pause to our intrepid souls. Once inside the compound, visitors face the Pyramid of the Sun. Currently, visitors are not permitted to climb to the top of its 210-foot precipice but even observing it from its formidable base, definitions as “the place where men become gods” seems apt enough. We were quickly assailed by a vendor of jaguar whistles. The growls he emitted from his pipe were forbidding enough to get our attention, but in deference to our two cats back in New York City, we refused.
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Dining Room, Museo Sumayo, Casa de Guillermo Tovar de Teresa
Photo Credit: Joanne Drapiewski |
The winds were quick to pick up, so we purchased thin shawls in hopes of some temporary relief. After a round of 100 anos mezcal to fortify ourselves in the nearest bodega, my two companions headed back this time to the Pyramid of the Moon. I gave in to my baser instincts for warmth but promised myself to return at a later date.
Like homing pigeons, we were happy to return to our Roma digs, finding Pizza Roma our “go to” place for the best “Detroit style” pies in all of Mexico. Since I’ve never been to that famed U.S. city, you’ll have to take my word. It doesn’t take an overactive imagination to picture how living well can really look. The historic home of Guillermo Tovar de Teresa is a classic 19th century Porfirian home. Priceless artworks and antiques abound but with a guard posted in every room, it was a bit stultifying. Still, the inner courtyard with exotic plants brushing the cheek brought the past to life in living color. A secondhand shop next door enticed us with toy soldiers and a forties style pink necklace plus a proprietress who attended the New School (my alma mater) back in Manhattan. Elena Reygads is a world-renowned Michelin-starred chef. As three avowed feminists, our biggest splurge in dining had to be at Rosetta’s. Led into a semi-private anteroom in a belle epoque mansion, we settled in for a culinary celebration. The mint-green wallpaper and the hush-toned waiters set the mood as we waited. For Joanne, seabass with green mole in sea salt, purslane and samphire; for Toni a flat iron steak (a marbled shoulder cut); and for me a farfalle pasta in sage with chicken livers and cream. Eclectic dining to be sure. For dessert we shared vanilla ice cream in rosemary and olive oil. We had to try it. The result was soupy. But the overall experience? Enticing.
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One unmissable destination for any traveler is Museo Nacional de Antropologia. Located in 1600-acre Chapultepec Park, even a few hours will reward the viewer. It’s a world class collection, with Mesoamerican artifacts stretching over 3,000 years preceding the Spanish invasion. Teotihuacan, Toltec, Oaxaca, Zapotec and Mixtec peoples are all represented, with 12 ground-floor salons to explore. An expansive outdoor quad allows for breathing time. Many of the exhibits are low-lit to prevent fading, but the size and scope will leave you breathless.
Lunch on the museum terrace was perfect. Eyes still reeling from the massive statuary, with a menu to match every region in the museum, I settled on carne asada tacos. I was unprepared for the huge slabs of smoking meat on charcoal stones that could have fed an entire field trip of students. A late day visit to Museo de Arte Moderno in Chapultepec was a trip I didn’t want to miss, with Las Dos Fridas, Kahlo’s twin self-portrait. A great fan of surrealist Remedios Varo, I was able to introduce her work to Toni. Remarkably, her genius remains undiscovered by many art lovers the world over.
Our last morning was spent in a library. We do live in New York City after all! However, Bibliotheca Vasconcelos in Santa Maria la Ribera is no ordinary library. Opened in 2006, it is the largest in Latin America, with rows of catwalks leading up to its six-story ceiling. (The building is elevator accessible.) The ground floor boasts the skeleton of a whale of dinosaur proportions. If it sounds too futuristic for some, there are pocket courtyards with butterflies and hummingbirds to lull away the day’s stresses. |
Acrobat Vase, Tlatilco, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Chapultepec Park
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Feathered Serpent Wall, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Chapultepec Park
Photo Credit: Joanne Drapiewski |
The Two Fridas, Museo de Arte Moderna, Chapultepec Park
Photo Credit: Joanne Drapiewski |
Whale Skeleton, Bibliotheca Vasconcelos, Interior
Santa Maria la Ribera |
Bibliotheca Vasconcelos, Interior, Santa Maria la Ribera
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A walk through la Ribera Park brought us to the Moorish Kiosk. Built in the neo-Mudejar architectural style in 19th century Spain, it is a wrought iron wonder, with its glass cupola dome at the top. To find it in the middle of a midday stroll, it captures the imagination. Built for the 1884 World’s Fair in New Orleans, it was later used for the Saint Louis Exposition in 1902. An old family photo from that year makes me wonder if my Missouri ancestors enjoyed its charms.
Dinner at the Argentina steak house La Provaleta seemed a perfect windup to our whirlwind tour. A foursome of young women in black cocktail lounge wear greeted us at the door, and we were promptly seated. We soon discovered there was dancing upstairs, but for our last night, a quiet supper with just the right amount of good fuss fit the bill. Fortunately, we couldn’t have anticipated the overnight delay with our Delta flight. But after cancellation for mechanical failure, we accepted the inevitable. Meal vouchers, an overnight stay at a Courtyard by Marriott and a $200 credit per person toward another future flight ended in a good night’s sleep and a return home the following day.
Would we return to experience this maravillosa city again? Por supuesto! (Of course!) |
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Places of Interest: Restaurants
El Contramar Durango 200, Roma Norte, Cuauhtémoc Pizza Roma Medellin 40, Roma Norte, Mexico City Restaurant Bella Aurora Puebla 242, Roma Norte, Cuauhtémoc Puerto Prendes Durango 175, Roma Norte, Cuahtemoc Cochinita Country Coyoacan Ignacio Allende, Berlin 161, Coyoacan Esquina Del Carmen Restaurant Cluny Calle de La Paz 57, San Angel Loc. 2 & 3 Entre Av. Insurgentes y Av. Revolución Zocalo Hotel Rooftop Bar Avenue 5 de Mayo 61 Cuahtemoc Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México Restaurant Rosetta Colima 16, Colonia Roma Norte Kolobok Calle Salvador Díaz Mirón 87 Santa María la Ribera, Cuauhtémoc La Provaleta Puebla 300, Roma Norte, Cuauhtémoc |
Places of Interest: Museums & Attractions
Museo de Arte Moderno Bosque de Chapultepec Paseo de la Reforma, Section 1, Polanco Museo Frida Kahlo Londres 247, Colonia Del Carmen, Coyoacan Museo Mural Diego Rivera Calle Colón Balderas s/n, Colonia Centro, Cuauhtémoc Museo del Carmen Avenue Revolution 4, San Angel Museo Soumayo Casa Guillermo Tovar de Teresa Valladolid 52-P. B, Roma Norte, Cuauhtémoc, 06700 Palacio de Bellas Artes Avenue Juarez S/N, Centro Histórico de la Ciudad, Cuauhtémoc Catedral Metropolitana Plaza de la Constitución S/N Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México, Centro, Cuauhtémoc Templo Mayor Seminario 8, Centro Histórico de la Cdad. de México, Centro, Museo Nacional de Antropologia Bosque de Chapultepec Paseo de la Reforma at Calle Gandhi, Polanco Biblioteca Vasconcelos Eje 1, Nte. Buenavista, Cuauhtémoc |
*Teotihuacan Pyramids: There are many tours from Mexico City available. We explored the site on our own and used an Uber for the 31-mile trip from the city, taking a bus back that departed every 30 minutes from the site to the main bus terminal. Autobuses are an easy option. Another option is Tekpan Tours with door-to-door service.
Sandra Bertrand is an award-winning playwright and painter. She is Chief Art Critic for Highbrow Magazine, and she is the former founding editor of NAWA NOW, a quarterly magazine published by the National Association of Women Artists, Inc. Prior to working for Sanctuary as travel & culture editor, Sandra was a Featured Artist in May 2019.
