January 20 - Mural Immersion and the Monument of the Revolution

Today we spent hours looking at murals. A nice building on our walk.  Go here if you would like a lot more detail on the murals.

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 But first a stop at the Monumento A La Revolucion.

There are 4 of these statues near the top of the monument.  They represent some part of Mexican life.  The monument is on a little hill.  There were many small groups of kids of various ages doing drills on the hill.

There is an elevator (expensive!) in the center of the monument that you can take up for a nice city view.  You could also pay to walk the circular stairs up as well.  Guess which one we chose!

Once we were at the top of the elevator the view was not that great.  The top wall came down so you had to crouch to get a view.  But there were some stairs going down to a cafe that were blocked off.  The girl running the elevator was kind enough to remove the barrier.  The views on this level were much better.

In fact, we could see part of the backs of the statues.

The views inside were pretty neat as well.  That is the elevator on the left.

The view of the city with the military drills going on.

Back down on ground level we started to explore the area.

This main street is blocked off of traffic so bikers, walkers, scooters, etc could use it.  Along the way people stopped to watch.  The women below were doing a dance.

A little way further was a square with a couple of sculptures.

Then into the Museum of Diego Rivera.  This was basically one room with an enormous mural on the back wall.  If you stood way back in the entrance to the room, you could get the whole picture in.  And also other people!
                                       
                                         
Now some closeups.

Notice the women behind the boy in the middle - that is Freda Kahlo, Diego's wife.  He paints her in every mural.

Upstairs was a mural and a couple of paintings by a Chinese artist who loved Diego's work and mimicked it.  He painted himself painting the mural in the center left side.

We kept running into this father and daughter.  The father had lived in the US and kept wanting to talk to us.

Then another walk to the next museum - the Antiquo Colegiode San Ildefonso.  We passed through a park and I saw this long, long line of people waiting for something.  They wrapped around several blocks.  I asked, but could not understand what they told me they were waiting for.

More buildings and monuments along the way.

And then onto the grounds of the San Ildefonso where we saw murals by Jose Clemente Orozco.

I liked this window.

And more murals.  These are by a French artist - Jean Charlot.

This is a photo of many cards hanging on strings - a moving exhibition.

And finally two street scenes.

And this one - looks like everyone got the memo to where something blue!