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The
Historical Centre is the oldest part of Mexico City and it’s also
the area that contains some of the most appreciated cultural
treasures of the country. The Centre, as the inhabitants of the city
call it, is an area of streets which invites us to travel to the
past and remember its times of splendor, times in which viceroys and
high-ranking officials traveled upon horse-drawn carriages, whilst
merchants, friars and nuns, craftsmen and other characters walked
through the famous and beautiful streets of the “City of Palaces”.
In
the Historical Centre of Mexico City you can find true architectural
treasures like the Metropolitan Cathedral; built over three
centuries, it comprises different styles of the viceroyship. Just a
few steps away from the Cathedral, you can find the National Palace,
seat of the Mexican Executive Power, and the City Hall, both of them
in front of the city’s Zócalo (public square) or Square of the
Constitution (second largest in the world after Moscow’s Red
Square).
Walking towards the area of the Alameda Central, on the street 5 de
mayo, we find ourselves surrounded by outstanding examples of
porfirian eclectic architecture. Not far from there, on Tacuba
Street, we can find some of the city’s traditional places, like the
Tacuba Café, a pleasant restaurant; decorated in excellent Mexican
style with Talavera mosaic and where they serve exquisite
traditional Mexican dishes. Tolsá Plaza is found on the same street,
it’s a place of great architectural harmony; it holds buildings like
the National Museum of Art, one of the most beautiful buildings in
the Historical Centre, and also the Mining Palace, of austere
Neoclasic sobriety which houses the Mining Palace Book Fair, one of
the most concurred of the city. Almost in front of Tolsá Plaza, to
one side of the Mining Palace, there stands the beautiful Mail
Palace (or Post Office Palace), a building of refined style inspired
in Venetian architecture.
Right in front of the Mail Palace, on the other side of Eje Central
Avenue, we can find the wonderful Palace of Fine Arts, one of the
most beautiful concert halls in the world; decorated with impressive
Art Nouveau style sculptures on the exterior, which contrast with
the sober elegance of its Art Deco interior, decorated with
prehispanic and geometric motifs. It’s in the front of this Palace,
from where we can appreciate another of the city’s most symbolic
buildings, the Latinamerican Tower, the first skyscraper in the city
and, in its time, the highest construction in Latinamerica; which
houses in its peak a viewpoint, a lookout from which, in clear days,
we can get beautiful views of the entire city.
The Historical Centre of Mexico City is such an amazing place that
we could never finish mentioning all of its great features and
legends; same of which have come to be part of a national legacy,
which has led the UNESCO to declare it “Cultural Heritage of the
World”. An intense campaign of restoration has been undertaken over
the last few years to regenerate the zone, giving it back the
splendor and dynamism that characterized it in earlier times.
Places of interest in this area:
·
Zócalo
·
Palace of Fine Arts
·
Alameda Central
·
Latinamerican Tower
·
National Museum of Art
For more information log on to Mexico City’s Historical Centre
Foundation webpage:
http://www.viveelcentro.org.mx
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