Mexico City Day 4

 Roaming around the city day

Today is roaming day. We have a vague idea for what we want to see, but no real itinerary. There's an artist market in St Rafael that we want to see. After that we plan to walk around the city to look at sights that we miss, check out Roma Norte which is a gentrified area and just roam.

My conclusion is the city really come alive on Sunday when everyone is out and about!

Busy park at El Centro

There's an artist market every Sunday at San Rafael. 

Artists display at St Rafael

One of the artist display in San Rafael

We tried to take the bus in the AM at the Auditorium and discovered the road is closed. Looking on the internet, it looks like every Sunday 8am-2pm roads are closed for cyclists. It's quite the operation with cones setup in major intersection, police holding up banners to stop cyclists from crossing red light illegally from cross intersection. 

Cyclists stopped at intersection by police for the red light

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%C3%A9vete_en_Bici#:~:text=The%20primary%20program%20is%20Paseo,about%2037%20times%20a%20year.

When they reopened a police car with sirens lead other cars through Reforma. 

Gentleman, start your engine!

So we took the subway to San Rafael instead, had breakfast at a tacos store and wandered around the artists market. 

Breakfast tacos at St Rafael

After seeing the artists, we walk to the Monument of Independence and discovered there's another event to support Paris 2024. 

Monument of Independence

We started walking towards the Benito Juarez monument and discovered the park is really busy on Sunday and the entire Belle Arts intersection is impressively crowded. 

Benito Juarez monument

El Centro on the weekend

Went to the House of Tiles and discovered it's a SanBorn and we stop for a drink in there and got a seat right away which is really lucky for a sat. The whole building is sinking so it's a little trippy sitting there and finding myself tilting forward in my seat. 

Casa de los Azuelejos (Blue house of tiles) with Sanborn

After the drink, we decide to take the bus from Reforma to the Monument of Angel Independence. 

Monument of Angel of the Independence

This is the Reforma street that we could see from the castle. So we hopped on the red bus and it stopped for a long time about 2 stops away from the monument. And we realized the locals are hopping off. Next thing we know, it did a U turn and we had to get off too. The locals must have a way to realize this bus isn't going to continue .. but there's no announcement etc. I am still puzzled how we are supposed to know. What's interesting is the red bus is very similar to the buses in Singapore. It's clean, nice and not very crowded. 

Red Bus run by the subway company

We walked to the monument and pass by a bunch of book stores setup on the side walk.

Book stores on side walk

We wandered to the stature of Cibeles. It's a replica of the same one in Madrid. The whole intersection is filled with interesting restaurants and bars. 

Stature of Fuente de Cibeles

We went to Casa 1900 Bakery and bought some pastries for our trip tomorrow to the pyramids. 

Casa 1900 bakery

Had a coffee in the La Bistro Palais as we got tired and it started really pouring! 

La bistro Palais

Got to Contramar and had an early dinner as it's walking distance in the rain. Enjoyed dinner a lot. They have spanish style pulpo with potatoes, followed with a nice fish in garlic and mushroom wine sauce and vongole angel hair pasta. They also had a wine from the valley that we have to find! 

Contramar dinner

After dinner we walked back to Reforma and took a bus back as the rain has slowed down a little. And 3rd times the charm! The bus got us right back to the hotel!