Mexico City: Hotel Geneve - Cosmopolitan and Charming Hotel

On a recent trip to Mexico City a couple of months ago we stayed at the Hotel Geneve, one of the oldest hotels in Mexico City. As you slowly make your way through crowded and busy street you certainly don't expect to arrive at this cosmopolitan hotel where you are given a very warm welcome.

Hotel Geneve within easy reach of most of the city attractions very near to the Angel of Independence monument

but far enough away to be in a quiet(ish) street surrounded by real Mexican life!  The hotel offers the many international and local guests a dedicated concierge service, the Phone Bar on the ground floor has a stunning collection of antique telephones.

On the premises you will also find a fitness centre, spa and the Veranda Bistro Restaurant serving meals all day but excelling at a traditional Mexican breakfast to set you up for the day.

Breakfast Tamales

and a selection of fried tacos along with many other savoury and sweet traditional dishes.

The interior of the hotel is lavish, dressed impressively for the impending Christmas holiday.

The hotel has turned itself into a mini museum celebrating that it has welcomed well known and influential guests for over 100 years including Sir Winston Churchill and Charles Lindberg.

My room had a really comfortable bed with a headboard carved from red cedar wood as well as the usual selection of Wi-Fi, TV, Air-conditioning, safe deposit box, coffee making machine (restocked daily) and more.

I was a guest of Hotel Geneve and the Mexico City Department of Tourism. I was not required to write a positive review.  As usual all opinions and photos are my own.  None of my photographs may be reproduced in any way without my written permission.

Mexico City: Wrestling Night!

When I was in Mexico City recently with a group we had a slight change to our itinerary leaving us with an evening to fill.  The guys in the party really wanted to visit the wrestling but to be fair I wasn't initially charged up with the idea.  However I didn't want to stay behind at the hotel and also didn't want to be seen as a 'party pooper' just because I wasn't initially interested in something.

Well, you never know until you experience something and also if you don't go you can't talk from a point of experience about a topic.

We turned up in a rather dark side street and when we were outside the place, the Coliseo, there was suddenly a lot of people hanging around outside, buying souvenir wrestling masks just like the players would be wearing and other icons of the sport.

While we were waiting in our group a couple of the well known (to the locals) wrestlers turned up, wearing their masks so that no one could identify them.  They were happy to talk to their fans and have their photos taken, especially with the children.

They even stopped for a photo or two with our group members wearing masks they had just bought from a street trader for the occasion.  It was funny seeing these grown up transform back into little boys with wrestling masks on giggling and pretending to be big strong wrestlers!

Once inside the stadium I was surprised how small it was and how close the wrestling ring was! As the start got nearer it started to fill up, what we found unusual was how many families were there with babies and young children, each young boy dreaming of their chance to be in the ring!

Plenty of refreshments on sale and without too long a wait the show was ready to commence.  I kept saying how choreographed each round was, calling it 'Strictly Come Wrestling' but the two guys I was sitting with kept on saying it was not scripted or planned.  I must admit though that when they fell to the floor with a really loud bump it must have hurt!

I was expecting huge crowds and unruly behaviour - the reality was a really intimate arena.  We were sitting about 7 rows from the front easily seeing all of the action as it unfolded.

Round 5 was the big one with the big names competing.  To annoy the boys I kept calling it Act 5!

We had a really good evening for less than £10.00 each with plenty of beer, tension and excitement.  If you find yourself in Mexico City with an evening to spare see if you can get a ticket for Luce Libre!

I was a guest of Mexico City Tourism Board however I was not required to write a positive review.  All photos and opinions are my own.  No photos may be reproduced in any way without my written permission.

Mexico City: Food Glorious! Food

Two things have inspired me to write this post. Firstly my recent trip to Mexico City and the food that I was able to eat and secondly the soup from Glorious! which I tasted at the recent food blogger conference I attended, one of their innovative and interesting range of soups - Mexican Tomato & Fire Roasted Pepper.

I tried the soup from Glorious! with my eyes closed.  I wanted to flood my taste buds and flavour senses with the tastes of the soup and the memories of my recent trip.

When I was in Mexico City there was food every where, every street corner had someone selling street food, fresh portions of Tuna (not a fish but the fruit of a local cactus which was everywhere you looked), tubs of fresh mango sprinkled with lime juice and a spicy chili combination  giving your taste buds the sweet mango flavour and juice in the first few seconds then the lime hits you with its acidity and sourness followed shortly after by the warmth and heat of the spice sprinkled.

Just about every other street corner had a sweet corn seller offering you a choice of your instant pleasure; plain and boiled in huge pans on small burners, bar-b-qued on little charcoal grills and a cup of corn kernels, cooked with a bit of chili and served with a squeeze of lime juice and a sprinkle of those moreish chili spices (By the way I did bring some of this spice home with me to sprinkle on pineapple which will be seared on the BBQ!).

The city was full of Mexican chain restaurants, international chains like Subway and KFC and local, individual places to eat like 'Corazon de Maguey' in the Coyoacan Square, the 'Opera' restaurant in the Centro Historico with an interior like an old Parisian restaurant but up to the minute Mexican dishes, 'Saks' in the San Angel quarter on a busy Saturday market day for a delicious lunch and if you are in the Polanco district you could try 'El Bajio' featuring classical dishes brought up to the minute or if you want to push the boat out and can get a reservation 'Pujol' is no. 15 in the top 50 restaurants in the world!

Mexico City's food scene comes at you from all corners, all angles and all tastes.

So I swallowed my mouthful of Mexican Tomato & Fire Roasted Pepper soup and opened my eyes and I was back in West London tasting Glorious! soups again!

This blog post is an entry into the foodies100/GLORIOUS! soup #GloriousAdventures blogger challenge.

I was not paid to write this post and all opinions are my own. 

Mexico City: MUCHO Chocolato Museum

When I was in Grenada for the 2nd Annual Grenada Chocolate Festival earlier this year I met a lovely woman, Ana Rita, from Mexico City who ran her own museum of chocolate in Mexico City.

On my recent trip to Mexico City in August we had some time to do our own thing on the last day. One of the others with me on the trip, Anita, and I took a cab to Museo MUCHO-Chocolate.

Mexico City has supposedly got the second highest number of museums in a city in the world with only London having more! We got out of the taxi and entered the museum to an intriguing and very modern design.

Beautiful machines from Germany that are no longer working but beautiful to look at.

Dotted all over are interesting machines used solely for the production of chocolate in their younger days, this one is still used.

This room has metate on the shelves. I was pleased to see them as Ana Rita had two with her in Grenada.

A metate is a stone used traditionally to grind corn for tortillas and they are very, very heavy! I would love to have one but there is no way I could ever get one home!!

There are collections of drinking vessels and specialised pouring vessels as well as

chocolate sculpture!

One little room in the museum had chocolate tiles made and stuck on the walls.

The smell was quite intoxicating when you stepped into the room,

so much so that visitors were often unable to resist and took bites out of the tiles on the wall! This one particular area around the window is constantly being replaced.

As well as making chocolates to put in the exhibits they sell a wide range in the shop downstairs

A beautiful and eye catching collection of tins and moulds hangs on the preparation room.

Staff busy at work creating lovely chocolates to purchase in the shop.

When we were finished our tour we sat downstairs in the café with open courtyard and enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate and a chocolate 'tamale' (corn husks are used to wrap around the ingredients and they are usually steamed), this one was a kind of chocolate cake.

It was lovely seeing Ana Rita on our visit to Mexico City. I want to come back again and spend more time wandering around this lovely museum and shrine to the cacao bean!

Mexico City: Contemporary, Vibrant and Colourful City -Part 2

After all of the sights and sounds of Mexico City I had experienced it didn't seem possible that we were only half way through our stay!  If you want to catch up on Part 1 click here.

It was Saturday and the place to go was to San Angel area, with its beautiful homes and which was once a separate village, where the Saturday bazaar and art market currently sell clothes, paintings, jewelry and more.

We enjoyed lunch at Saks, a busy restaurant opposite the square which provided us with a feast to restore us so we could enjoy the market further.

The next stop on our day was the home of Diego Rivera, one of Mexico's most famous artists who created many of the outstanding paintings and murals in the city.

The afternoon finished with an introduction to coffee tasting, hosted by the President of the Association of Specialty Coffee and Coffee Shops where we learned all about the coffee history and production in Mexico and then a lesson on tasting known as 'cupping' four different blends.

After a privately hosted evening and relaxation we returned to our hotel to sleep and start again in the morning.

Sunday morning we visited the Chapultepec Castle, high above the city centre with amazing views below helping us to get our bearings of the stretch and enormity of the city.

You can walk to the top or you can take the little train, remembering that Mexico City is already over 7,000' above sea level!

A short walk from the Chapultepec Castle was the National Anthropology Museum.  This museum holds a fantastic collection of authentic Mayan and Aztec artifacts, a subject that has fascinated me since grade school.  I was walking around in a daze completely immersed in the past that I had studied so many years ago at school.

After another lunch we visited the Museo Soumaya which houses over 66,000 pieces of art and holds the largest collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin outside of France, seeing such fantastic pieces really made my experience as I have long been a fan of Rodin.

Hard to believe but we woke up on the Monday and it was our last day.  We started with a breakfast meeting with the Mexico City Minister of Tourism, Miguel Torruco Marques who was interested in our opinions of tourism in the city as seen by foreigners and what they could do to keep tourism up to date and fresh, encouraging more visitors to Mexico City.

As the rest of our day was free until late afternoon pick up for the airport one of the other members of our group, Anita and myself set off to visit MUCHO Chocolato Museum, run and curated by a lovely woman I met on my recent trip to Grenada Chocolate Festval.

Anita and I also managed to get reservations for lunch, our last meal in Mexico City, at the Pujol restaurant, one of the top 50 restaurants of the world.  We had a truly unique meal which I will be telling you about in much more detail soon.

I have tried to give you a taste for the diversity and excitement of Mexico City in this post and in Part 1. We never really scratched the surface of this fascinating part of the world and I really hope to re-visit to carry on where I left off.

I was a guest of Mexico City Tourism. All photos and opinions are my own.

Mexico City: Contemporary, Vibrant and Colourful City -Part 1

Rising from the ruins of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan – Mexico City has museums both contemporary and historic as well as world class restaurants and vibrant parks making it the colourful, vibrant, cultural and contemporary city that it is today.

When I arrived at the airport in Mexico City and I must admit that I was expecting a poor city with plenty of people on the street, poor housing and as the Minister of Culture said to us at breakfast on our last day, I expected to see men with donkeys hanging around wearing sombreros!

Breaking News!! Mexico City is nothing like I imagined!!

We arrived at 04:30 in the morning in the dark, waking up to a beautiful sunny day and fountains in the square opposite our first hotel.  Three hours sleep, quick shower, breakfast and the start of a full packed week getting to know the best of Mexico City!

Here is a quick roundup of our trip.  Many of the places will be followed up in detailed blog posts to come:-

The breakfast terrace at Casa de la Condesa hotel in Colonia Roma

My first Mexican breakfast, simple and plain but lovely and tasty!

Statue in the gardens of the Dolores Olmeda museum

One is a statue and the other four are live 'naked' dogs!

Beautiful tiled kitchen and crock in the kitchen at Dolores Olmeda museum

Frida Khalo's painting

Frida Khalo

Spices and chillis in a market we took a short cut through

Bronze statue in Coyocan Square

Sweetcorn street food, fresh, simple and delicious with a hint of chilli!

A bright and colourful trajinera at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Xochimilco

An alter in the Metropolitan Cathederal

Standing in front of one of the huge murals by Diego Rivera in The Old Mayor's Palace.

A quick trip out of the city, about 30 miles north east to the State of Mexico (Estado de Mexico) we arrived at the archaeological site of the Teotihuacan Pyramids, large stone pyramid shapes dating back to approx 300-600 AD in what was called The City of The Gods. 

We looked around a tequila museum, had a private Mariachi band play to us, discovered the Mercado de Carmelo as well as experienced some great restaurants and we were only half way through our visit.

Part two of my Mexico City round up will follow shortly. Keep your eyes out to find out what else we discovered.

I was the guest of The Mexico City Tourist Board