We recently spent 5 days in Mexico City and I have officially found my favorite city on this side of the globe. For my husband, this trip was especially meaningful. Even though he is half-Mexican, it was his first time to the country.
It’s now been over 3 years since my family left Switzerland and moved back to the United States. I can’t believe how quickly time has gone. In some ways it feels like we just left. It was extremely important to us that we brought our love of travel with us to this side of the world, and we have held true to that missions.
From O’Hare, there are multiple non-stop options to Mexico City’s international airport. We flew United, and it was about 3.5 hours each way. Because it was our first time in the city, we also arranged airport transportation through our hotel, the Hyatt Regency. While customs was a breeze, our luggage took forever!
The hotel is located in the Polanco neighborhood. As we drove through, we were immediately struck by how European the city looked. My only experience within the country up until that point had been in Cancun. And this was totally different from Cancun.
Walking around the neighborhood that evening looking for a place to eat, we were also impressed with the amount of greenery. Every step we took, we were either underneath a tree or being led through a park. The amount of greenery coupled with the European-style buildings and pathways made for such a beautiful backdrop. We knew immediately we would be falling in love with this city.
For our first full day, we hired a car and tour guide and drove to Xochimilco. Located about 40 minutes from where we were staying, our guide shared that Xochimilco translates to “the place of flowers”. However, what makes this place so special is its rivers and colorful long boats that earned this city its nickname of “The Venice of Mexico”.
Upon approaching the boats, my jaw dropped. These incredibly colorful vessels were magnificent! I have been blessed enough to experience both the canals of Venice and the floating markets of Thailand, but I had never seen something like this! Each boat had its own unique name adorning the top. And given the intricate tetris-style parking of the boats, had to walk across a couple before taking a comfortable seat within ours.
It was an incredibly calm and beautiful day on the water. Our tour guide was surprised by how lucky we got. “Normally,” he said “there are more than 2,000 boats on the water and you can barely move.” For us, it was literally smooth sailing. We sipped on cold Corona’s while we browsed the wares and food for sale along the shoreline. We stopped off at a restaurant on the side for some authentic tacos and hired a mariachi band to sing us some Selena!
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We were on the water for over 2 hours and were sun-kissed and happy as we made the drive back to our hotel.
Our second full day in Mexico City is what Tilly had been waiting for – a visit to the Frida Kahlo museum. Tilly has a children’s book about Frida which is where her interest in the artist originated. However, seeing the museum and learning more details about her life was darker than we anticipated. I guess it’s appropriate, though, seeing as we are in October.
First, tickets need to be purchased in advance on the museum website. The tickets only go on sale the first of each month, so I scrambled to make sure we were set before we left Chicago. You are also purchasing for a specific time slot so as not to overcrowd the space.
The museum is held in Frida’s family home; where she was born and where she died. As we queued up to enter, there was a local guide that we were able to pay to give us a quick verbal history of Frida. I quickly realized Tilly’s children’s book was a much more G-rated version of her life.
Aside from suffering from polio as a child, her bus accident in her late teens/early 20s penetrated her female organs, making it almost impossible to conceive later in life. She was bedridden for a long time and given this all occurred in the early 1900s Mexico, the medical care available was not robust. Her famous artist husband and she had an “open relationship”. This didn’t become problematic until this openness extended to her younger sister, at which point they divorced. But then they remarried. And she had multiple miscarriages, and, and, and….
Yikes. To me, her life sounded like the original telenovela.
To cap it off, Frida’s remains still sit inside the museum, nested in this frog vase. That was enough Halloween for us.
After the museum, we rested a bit at the hotel and then decided to wander around the neighborhood. Not far from the hotel is the Chapultec Castle, nestled above a huge park. The castle was heavily involved in the Mexican-American war and has hosted numerous major historical figures to Mexico over the last 200+ years.
We enjoyed the walk, but as we started heading up towards the castle, realized we might have made a mistake. After walking through the park for well over a mile to get to the castle, hiking upwards for another 20 minutes was a stretch.
While the castle was stunning and I was glad we saw it, we really overextended Tilly. After a little over an hour at the museum, we still had the walk down and back through the park. By the end of the night, the poor thing was sick and we ended up staying in to tend to her. Luckily she fully recovered by the next morning, but she sure did give me a scare!
More to come from the rest of our trip…stay tuned for Part 2!
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