Past glories ... breakfast in the Casa de los Azulejos.Credit: Melanie Ball
Long after visiting as a child, Melanie Ball returns to the art and colour of a much-maligned but vibrant world city.
Mexico City has shrugged off its reputation as one of the world's most polluted cities, with a combination of traffic restrictions, an inexpensive mass-transit system and Latino elan. That's not to say the mega-metropolis of some 20 million people is clean - the encircling mountains are visible only rarely - but cleaner air makes it physically easier to explore this ancient capital. Four decades after visiting as a child with my family, the vibrant colours and broad smiles come as no surprise to me - those aspects of the city haven't changed.
8am Have breakfast in the strikingly tiled Casa de los Azulejos. This baroque count's palace houses a Sanborns chain restaurant serving Mexican fare, from omelets to enchiladas and biftec (steak), from early to late. Regular breakfasters often pick up takeaways from the diner-style front counters but the place to sit is at a table in the roofed courtyard. Between kick-start coffee and pan dulce (pastries) or a corn tortilla with fried eggs, climb the stairs for a view over the arches, stained glass and Moorish fountain.
Casa de los Azulejos, Av Madero 4, 7am-1am, breakfast $6-$10.
9am Ride the Metro south to Copilco, one of two stations for University City. Costing just 25¢, the train journey saves a 10-kilometre road trip and introduces you to rail-riding sweet sellers, CD hawkers and blind buskers. Female travellers who can't avoid weekday peak times can take refuge from crush-hour groping in women-only carriages.
9.15am From Copilco, walk west along Av Universidad and south into Av Insurgentes Sur to Olympic Stadium. Then enter the university proper to see Biblioteca Central, a 10-storey building decorated with Juan O'Gorman mosaics. Three walls depict colonial times, Aztec culture and modern Mexico's creation; the fourth is more abstract. A three-dimensional painting of impassioned students by David Alfaro Siqueiros projects from the nearby Rectoria. The Stalinist Siqueiros led a failed attempt on the life of the Bolshevik revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, (see below).
10.15am Walk north for about a kilometre through Coyoacan neighbourhood (or ride the Metro two stops to Viveros) and join the joggers, picnickers, lovers and squirrels in shady Viveros de Coyoacan, Mexico City's main plant nursery.
11am Stroll past centuries-old houses to the two squares at the heart of Coyoacan. The Conquistador, Hernan Cortes, ruled New Spain from Coyoacan until the colonial government moved to Mexico City in 1524. Casa de Cortes stands shoulder to shoulder with heritage buildings around Plaza Hidalgo and the adjacent tree-filled plaza, Jardin Del Centenario. Have an early cafe lunch or fill up on scrumptious home-made ice-cream - corn flavour is one option - at Nieves de Coyoacan. Cone in hand, browse the weekend market stalls. Some Spanish comprehension is needed to read the protest banners on the plaza railings.
Nieves de Coyoacan, Plaza Hidalgo 31, 8am-10pm; ice-cream cones from $1.
Noon Walk six blocks north to Museo Frida Kahlo, the blue house where Mexico's famous feminist artist was born, lived at times and died aged 47. On display are the regional Mexican costumes she wore, an easel given to her by Nelson Rockefeller and a wheelchair, artificial leg and crutches - Kahlo contracted polio as a child and was severely injured in a bus crash. In another room is a papier-mache skeleton with stylised torso brace.
Museo Frida Kahlo, Londres 247, Coyoacan, 10am-6pm, Tuesday-Sunday.
1.15pm Another kilometre east and north is Museo Leon Trotsky. Photographs festoon the outbuildings and bullet holes punch the bedroom wall - scars from Siqueiros's failed assassination attempt in 1940. The desk at which Trotsky was attacked with an ice axe three months later, causing the exile's death the following day, remains as it was. His tomb is in the garden.
Museo Leon Trotsky, Rio Churubusco 410, Coyoacan, 10am-5pm, Tuesday-Sunday, entry $3.
2.15pm Walk and catch a train back to the city's World Heritage-declared historic centre. At 240 metres by 240 metres in size, central Plaza de la Constitucion, more commonly called the zocalo, is one of the world's largest public squares. Off its north-east corner is Templo Mayor, the ceremonial centre of the Aztec city-state of Tenochtitlan, which the Spanish razed in the siege of 1520-21 before building their colonial capital. Watch feather-dressed "Aztec" dancers stamping and swirling in a haze of incense smoke. Then walk through the ruins, passing the stone on which countless humans were sacrificed. The star of the show in the on-site museum is the eight-tonne stone-disc carving of the goddess Coyolxauhqui.
Templo Mayor, Seminario 8, 9am-5pm, Tuesday-Sunday, entry $4.
3.45pm Back in the zocalo, visit the National Palace, which is home to the offices of Mexico's president, the federal Treasury and Diego Rivera's murals. The large triptych on the main stairs depicts Mexican history from Aztec times to the post-revolutionary era. Smaller works around the first-floor courtyard balcony depict pre-colonial indigenous life.
National Palace, Plaza de la Constitucion, open 10am-5pm, free.
4.45pm Check the fringe-art scene at Museo Jose Luis Cuevas, two blocks east. The centrepiece of the colonnaded courtyard is Cuevas's La Giganta, a fantastically grotesque nine-metre-high man-woman.
Museo Jose Luis Cuevas, Academia 13, 10am-5.30pm, Tuesday-Sunday, entry $2.
5.30pm Return to the Metropolitan Cathedral on the zocalo. The bell tower is a great vantage point for the high-stepping, gun-toting six o'clock ceremony to lower the huge Mexican flag unfurled on the zocalo flagpole each morning.
Metropolitan Cathedral, Zocalo, 8am-7pm daily; bell tower climb costs $1.50.
7pm Walk to Mercado San Camilito (about half an hour), stopping for a taco entree at a footpath stall. Tuck into a bowl of pozole - pork and hominy (dried maize) stew for about $4 - at one of the numerous market kitchens. Most also serve goat stew and tepache, a fermented pineapple drink.
8pm Step from the market on to Plaza Garibaldi for an evening of mariachi band entertainment ($10 a song). The trumpet and guitar music could inspire the most conservative traveller to don a skin-tight braided suit and sombrero.
Qantas flies to Mexico City for about $2200 (low-season return from Melbourne and Sydney), flying Qantas to Los Angeles (14hr) and then Mexicana de Aviacion to Mexico City (3hr 35min). Australians require a tourist card for a stay of up to 180 days. This can be obtained on flights into Mexico or at the port of entry.
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