Templo y Museo del Carmen – GringoPotpourri

Mexico City, once the biggest city in the world and still the biggest city in the Americas, has more than enough museums to keep its 20 million + residents satisfied: over 100, the most of any city in the world.

An exact count is not really possible considering that new museums and galleries open every month, but seemingly every subject is covered. Do you like classic cars? Check out the Museo del Automóvil (Automobile Museum), in the south of the city. Are you fascinated by European decorative arts? You won’t want to miss Museo Franz Mayer, near the Alameda Central and home to a rich collection of tapestries, furnishings, and garments. Eager to learn more about the struggle for indigenous women’s rights? You should visit the Museo de la Mujer (Museum of the Woman), a few blocks east of Plaza Garibaldi. Curious about the agave harvest? The Museo del Tequila y El Mezcal, (Museum of Tequila and Mezcal) in Plaza Garibaldi itself, is for you – and admission includes a free tequila shot!

Some of the museums are real oddities. The delightful Museo de Arte Popular (Popular Art Museum), housed in an Art Deco firehouse south of the Alameda Central, displays fanciful alebrijes – colorful folk art sculptures that feature in an elaborate parade each October. The Museo de la Medicina (Museum of Medicine), near Plaza San Jacinto in the Centro Histórico, has more exhibits of aborted fetuses and genital warts than even the strongest stomach can handle. The adjacent Museo de la Inquisición (Inquisition Museum), which shares the same building, is of the disturbing-and-yet-I-can’t-avert-my-eyes variety. And Anahacualli, south of Coyoacán, is a cool and spooky stone hacienda that resembles an Aztec temple of sorts and that houses Diego Rivera’s formidable collection of pre-Hispanic idols.

I was inspired to write this post at the suggestion of my fellow blogger William, a retired English teacher who now spends half the year in Mexico City. (Life goals – en serio!) Check out his writings at ilovemexico2013.blogspot.com. In the meantime, here are my Top Ten Mexico City Museums:

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Last week, I wrote the first of what I hope to be a series of articles about Mexico City neighborhoods that I find enchanting. That portrait, about the colonial neighborhood and greater borough of Coyoacán, is similar in theme to my 2014 and 2015 series on Mexico City’s barrios bravos (Tepito, Doctores, etc.). The difference? Coyo isn’t as rough around the edges, and the post was written while wearing a pair of rose-tinted glasses. I am immediately following that Coyo post with my second entry in this new series.

Just one stop south from Metro Viveros – where subway passengers exit for Coyoacán – is Metro Miguel Ángel de Quevedo, named after the renowned Mexican architect and environmentalist. Alight here and you’ll see another sculpture of two coyotes in the middle of a traffic roundabout. Turn left, though, and a ten minute walk along the street of the same name leads you through Chimalistac colonia and into Álvaro Obregón delegación, home to the upscale, hilly neighborhood of San Ángel.

Continue reading “Portrait of a Neighborhood: San Ángel”