Mexico's cultural core

At this time of year, many Minnesotans stare into the coming winter and start planning trips to the sunny beaches of Cancun or Cabo San Lucas.

But if you want a trip south of the border with a bit more cultural heft, grit and complex history, consider the Western Hemisphere's biggest metropolis, Mexico City.

At the city's center, without taking a step, you can stand where Montezuma ruled the Aztec empire, where humans were sacrificed to the gods, where Hernan Cortés carried out the first European conquest in America and where Spain held sway for nearly three centuries. Within sight are the center of the Mexican government today and the largest colonial cathedral in Latin America. Walk a block or two, and you're gazing at the spectacular colorful murals of Diego Rivera that tell the tale of it all.

My wife and I didn't know what to expect when we visited recently. We had never put the sprawling, complicated metropolitan area of about 20 million people high on our list of places to see. But when we found ourselves there to attend a wedding, we were impressed -- both by its historic and artistic appeal and by its frustrating traffic and depressing smog.

The city's heartbeat is the Zocalo. It's a huge empty square, featuring no permanent structure but for a flagpole with an enormous Mexican flag fluttering in the breeze. But when we visited, it was home to a massive and crowded book fair, whose tents covered the whole block, as well as a take-your-pick panoply of protesters. Unhappy teachers, electrical workers and rural peasants took turns blocking traffic and calling for attention.

Surrounding the square are the National Palace, sometimes home to the country's president and where the most famous murals of Diego Rivera line the walls; the National Cathedral, a huge heap of mixed architecture resulting from the fact it took more than 200 years to build; and, most fascinating of all, the Templo Mayor.

Slanting walls of red and black volcanic stone are what remain of the towering Aztec pyramid that the Spanish laid eyes on in 1519. From this spot, Montezuma ruled an empire that spread across much of the middle of modern-day Mexico. And on this spot two years later, Cortés overthrew that empire, tore down much of the structure and established what became New Spain.

You can walk through the archaeological dig and see Aztec stone carvings and get a feel for how the Aztecs successively built larger pyramids atop earlier ones. When you reach the center, or earliest, stage, one stone carving conjures up the all-important god of water. Another simple black stone slab is where those chosen for sacrifice were bent over backward so their beating hearts could be quickly plucked from their bodies.

Articulate signs explain the ruins in Spanish and English, and an attached museum houses some of the wonderful finds, including a massive circular carving of the god Coyolxauhqui after she had been hurled down a pyramid by her brother, an event that both dismembered her and led her to become the moon in Aztec myth.

Hotel acts as quiet oasis

When we first contemplated spending several days in Mexico City, we assumed we would stay in a hotel near the central and historical Zocalo. Because the area is crowded and a little rundown, however, we were glad we opted for the Casa Gonzalez, a hotel in an area known as the Zona Rosa. The building sits across the street from the British Embassy and just off Paseo de la Reforma, a broad boulevard that runs from near the spot that has been the center of the action for nearly 700 years to a beautiful park that houses great museums and is known as the "lungs of the city."

The street is often clogged with traffic that zooms or crawls around periodic "glorietas," traffic circles containing monuments to Mexico's past. When I said the city's traffic was terrible, a native corrected me. No, it's horrible.

The Zona Rosa is perhaps not the glamorous attraction it was some years ago, but it's where the U.S. embassy is and it's still lively. Open-air markets, street sellers and taco stands line the streets, and one night we walked to a cantina where a patron had insisted the bar switch the television from ubiquitous soccer to the Dodgers-Phillies playoff game. When I asked why, he simply said, "Fernando Valenzuela." The great Mexican pitcher for the Dodgers in the 1980s still had his fans.

Our hotel was a breath of fresh air in a city without much of it. Closeted behind steel gates and without even announcing its name on the street, the Casa Gonzalez offered us a quiet common patio with wrought-iron chairs and tables and a bubbling ceramic fountain. It consists of several attached small buildings, each with a few rooms and sitting areas. A small dining room served meals, and at breakfast it was a pleasure to chat with Canadians, Israelis and others setting out on their days.

One day, after a hot visit to Teotihuacan, the 2,000-year-old archaeological site that includes huge pyramids, about an hour outside the city, we returned exhausted with family members and friends and were greeted with a round of refreshing margaritas delivered to our room.

Pretty park houses museums

The hotel was halfway between the Zocalo and Chapultepec. If the Zocalo leaves you feeling like you need to wash your hands, Chapultepec is cleansing, the garden spot that provided the Aztecs with clean water via an aqueduct later destroyed by the Spanish. A large treed oasis, it offers natives and tourists alike a pleasant shady walk, and also houses some impressive museums.

We hired a guide to the National Museum of Anthropology and History. We spent three hours and barely got past the Aztecs, coming away with a much better understanding of what to me had been a jumble of facts, myths and questions. We scratched the surface of the Maya and earlier Mexican civilizations and entirely missed explanations of current Mexican cultures. Suffice it to say, the museum is a great introduction to the country's past. I came away actually being able to recognize the god Tlaloc in stone carvings and, for the time being, to pronounce "Coyolxauhqui."

Nearby are two premier art museums. Mexico City is famous for its murals and for being home to two 20th-century greats, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. But in the Museum of Modern Art and the Rufino Tamayo Museum, we found a refreshing cross-section of paintings by a great variety of Mexican and other modernists. For me, a touching portrayal by David Siqueiros of a peasant mother holding a child, walking from a flaming sky that could have been sunset or conflict, lent great perspective on the color, warmth and heartbreak of Mexico.

As we walked near the museum, we came upon a monument to six young patriots who had died defending their homeland in 1847. If you travel much you can become inured to the common, if heartfelt, monuments to fallen soldiers. And given Mexico's history of violence and revolution, it wasn't surprising to find one here. But this was unique in my experience.

As I ambled past the six stark black-and-white columns that commemorate "los niños héroes," it dawned on me more slowly than it should have that the enemy that occasioned the young cadets' deaths was the United States. The city's capture by U.S. forces ended what we call the Mexican War and what Mexicans refer to as an invasion. And it nailed down the fact that Texas, California and parts in between would permanently change hands.

I didn't feel guilty about an event a century and a half old, but the monument was a reminder that my country and Mexico are connected in a great variety of ways and that for all the smog, traffic and security precautions that tourists deal with, a trip to the capital city offered so much more than sun and sand.

Dave Peters is a longtime Minnesota writer, editor and traveler.