2019: Mexico City with the gang: Market, murals, food, and more

Today the plan was: food market, street tacos, and murals, following the recommendations in Jim Johnston's guide book.

We started off by walking to Mercado de San Juan. I didn't last long in this market--it was very pungent. I'm not a fan of meat and seafood markets or the smells they emit. I waited for the gang in the fruits section, which was marginally less smelly.

We walked through the pretty Plaza de San Juan to husband's destination for tacos: El Huequito. The al pastor was being made fresh and eaten right on the street. He really enjoyed this taco.

We stopped at the liquor store next door. And continued down the street with husband taking pictures of all the interesting (food) sights.

We routed ourselves to Colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola Viscainas through busy streets.

The Colegio Viscainas is an 18th century baroque building that occupies an entire block. It's a school. The building looks in bad shape but you can see how pretty it was when new.

We kept walking, heading toward the Zocalo and our ultimate destination, the Palacio National.

We stumbled upon an open Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada which is a research library. The facade was beautiful because it was an 18th century church and theatre. We were surprised by the inside which was covered in funky murals by Russian-Mexican artist Vladimir Víktorovich Kibálchich Rusakov (aka Vlady) in the 1970's.

We kept on wandering the busy streets toward the Zocalo.

The Palacio Nacional (free) is a working government building, so we handed over our IDs, went through a metal detector, deposited our bags in the coat check, got our visitor's passes, and were in to look at the Diego Rivera murals.

After looking at all the murals and the art in the adjacent rooms, we headed out.

We next stopped at the nearby Catedral Metropolita de la Cuidad de Mexico. There was no mass this time so we were able to walk around this magnificent old, badly sinking, building. Its construction started in 1573 and wasn't finished until 1813 (250 years!). It is baroque, neo-classical, and neo-renaissance. There's lots of gold and precious artifacts. Binoculars would help you see the Peter Paul Rubens inspired portals reliefs.

We headed back to the hotel via the Franz Mayer museum's courtyard. There was an art exhibit of some kind and a goodly number of people milling around.

We wandered the streets into Parque Alameda Central where the horses and riders were lined up.

Tonight we would revisit my favorite restaurant from our first trip, Quintonil. Uber got us there with no problem and we were warmly welcomed and sat in a nice booth. Quintonil is a small restaurant. The food is fabulous and the service is attentive. We all enjoyed our meals and would love to return.