Historical & Hip: Mai Tai Tomás Travels To México City
Day Eight – Where’s That Ticket Office?, Not A Bad Walk At All, Magnificent Murals, Stained Glass Hallway, Exploring The Grounds, It’s All Up From Here, Perambulating Polanco, Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, A Quick Stop In Uruguay, VIP Treatment & Mas Tequila!
After a quick breakfast at our hotel, we got an early start on our walk to Chapultepec Park for a tour of Chapultepec Castle. We momentarily went in the wrong direction, but this building lent a hand in guiding our way.
Inside the Lion’s Gate one more time, we were asked to stay and spend some time with this guy. I told him we were in a hurry to get to the castle, so I said, “In a while crocodile.”
Before heading to Mexico City, I had been forewarned on many sites not to head up the trail to the castle until you purchased your tickets below. For once I heeded that call, and after spending some time attempting to find the elusive ticket office, we got our tickets (free to those over 60 years of age) to head up.
Another online warning was that the walk up to the castle was rather strenuous. It was not. Along the way we took in the city views of Mexico City.
We strolled by a small pond and a statue entitled José María Morelos y Pavón, a “Catholic priest, statesman and military leader who led the Mexican War of Independence” in the early 19th century. He was eventually captured and executed by the royalist army.
Online reports were correct. If you arrive at the castle without a ticket, there is no place to purchase one up top. Looking at what we thought was the castle, we tried to determine where the entrance was located. Since there was a large stairwell, we decided this must be it. As it turned out, we were actually in the old military college that houses Museo Nacional de Historia in the Castillo de Chapultepec. First we entered a gallery with a famed mural (De Porfirismo a la Revolucion) by David Alfaro Siqueiros.
The mural is hard to capture as it spreads across walls of the gallery, which Siqueiros developed. I guess when you run out of wall space, you just create more walls.
You’re just going to have to visit to experience the magnitude of his work.
Speaking of which, as we climbed the staircase before us was another mural. Alegoria de la Revolucion Mexicana by Eduardo Solares Gutierrezis, also something to behold.Looking upward is the mesmerizing dome. Tracy perfectly photographed La Intervención NorteAmerica by Gabriel Flores. It shows one of the Niños Héroes (we saw the memorial in the park the previous day) jumping from the castle clutching the Mexican flag to prevent the invading Americans from capturing it in the 1847 Battle of Castillo de Chapultepec. The horse below carries the American flag. Simply a mind boggling mural.
It so happens that Chapultepec Hill is also where the Aztecs made their last stand against Cortez and his conquistadors.
Upstairs we were green with envy as we entered Malachite Hall. Not knowing what malachite was (I probably should have attended more of my geology class at SDSU), I subsequently learned it is “a green copper carbonate mineral.”
In the room is a stunning door. Emperor Maximilian I and Carlota, who made Chapultepec Castle their home, liked to import numerous pieces of furniture to the castle. By the way, Chapultepec is “the only castle in North America that actually served as a residence for royalty.” The door, along with the flowerpots and fountain in this room, are from the London World’s Fair. They were sent from Czar Nicholas I of Russia.
And I’m not lion.
From my limited Spanish, this painting is of Doña Ignacia Mora y Ozta who was married to Don Miguel Arroyo who was Undersecretary of Relations. Please feel free to insert your own joke here.
Another room was full of Viceroys. In the Hall of the Viceroys, no Winstons or Marlboros allowed here. The Equestrian Portrait of Bernardo de Gálvez is featured.
There wasn’t anything else here, so we figured there had to be more to the castle. We saw someone who looked official because they were dressed much nicer than we were, who pointed us toward the Carriage Hall, which is where we entered the castle. Two murals by Antonio González Orozco stand out. The first is Entrada triunfal de Benito Juárez a Palacio Nacional acompañado de su gabinete (Triumphal entry of Benito Juárez to the National Palace accompanied by his cabinet).
The other is the famous Juárez, símbolo de la República contra la Intervención Francesa (Juárez, symbol of the Republic against the French Intervention). Juárez served five terms as Mexico’s president, both before and after the French occupation. So how did the French come to occupy Mexico? Well, to make a long interesting story really, really short, Napoleón III of France was convinced by various advisors that what Mexico needed to unify the country was a monarchy. However, he didn’t want to move to Mexico himself so after much negotiating and many promises, Napoleón III offered the job of puppet emperor to the Austrian archduke Maximilian of Habsburg. Maximilian was the “spare” younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, thereby making Maximilian the original spare heir in North America. (I hope things work out better for Prince Harry. The French occupied Mexico City in 1863, but things didn’t go too well. It turned out the country really wasn’t keen on having an emperor, after all. The French were defeated in 1867, Juárez regained power, and thanks partly to Maximilian’s mom, who didn’t want her disgraced son to return home tarnishing the Habsburg name, old Maximilian was executed along with two of his generals. Thanks mom! (Tracy highly recommends you read The Last Emperor of Mexico by Edward Shawcross to learn more about this fascinating chapter of Mexican history.)
We then discovered why this is called the Carriage Hall. The royal coach of Emperor Maximilian and consort Empress Carlota was made in Milan in the mid-1860s.
There are carved angels, and the side of the coach contains the Imperial Crest.
Also in the room are some famous paintings. The 19th-century Equestrian Portrait of Maximilian of Habsburg is on the left, General Mariano Escobedo (center), while the Portrait of General (and then president) Porfirio Díaz is on the right. President Díaz made the castle his home in the late 19th and early 20th century.
We then headed down the Introductory Hall, which was once utilized as a bowling alley. I assume they spared no expense.
We immediately split outside through a room to one of the terraces where Maximillian liked to read. Or he liked to read in the room. The mezcal on this trip has played tricks with my memory.
Then it was time to see the replicas of the various castle rooms. The Games Room is where Maximilian and guests would play cards and other games. The tapestry displays two guys playing badminton with no net results.
If you’re going to have a Smoking Room, it might as well be a nice one. Lots of urns decorated this room, many of them gifts to the Viceroys.
It had an elegant dining room with a fireplace, and sideboards made of cedar, mahogany, metal and marble. These were ordered by President Díaz. This room reminded us of many of the European palaces we have visited on our journeys.
