Mexico 2018 - Cholula

When visiting Puebla, an excursion to Cholula is obligatory.  Originally a distinct city, Cholula is has now been swallowed up by the urban sprawl of Puebla but it retains its distinct character and is a huge draw for tourists.  

One of the chief attractions there is the Great Pyramid of Cholula with a base of over four times the size of the great pyramid of Giza. 

 It is the largest archaeological site of a pyramid (temple) in the New World, as well as the largest pyramid known to exist in the world today. The pyramid is part of the archeological zone of Cholula, which is estimated at 154 hectares.  

The site is accessed through a long tunnel constructed for archeological exploration originally.

The temple-pyramid complex was built in four stages, starting from the 3rd century BC through the 9th century AD, and was dedicated to the deity Quetalcoatl.  At the top is the Nuestra Señora de los Remedios sanctuary built in 1594 by the Spanish.  

This church has been damaged by earthquakes three times and repaired twice so far, the most recent being the earthquake last September.  The church hasn't been repaired yet and is closed to visitors.  Maybe there's a message there?  
 
The other notable feature of Cholula is the number of churches.  

 It is said that the city of Cholula has 365 churches, either one for each day of the year or one for each pre-Hispanic temple that used to be there. In reality, there are only thirty seven churches; 159, if all the small chapels including those on local haciendas and ranches are counted.  

The San Gabriel church and monastery was established in 1529 by the Franciscans, on top of the destroyed temple to Quetzalcoatl 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbZPYTcgMeU

Moorish influenced architecture

 

In any case, there are are a lot of churches even by Mexican standards.  So, while visiting Puebla, I set one day aside to visit Cholula. 

Mexico 2018 - Puebla 1

On this year's visit to Mexico City I got a bee in my bonnet to take an excursion to the city of Puebla a couple of hours south of Mexico City by bus.  

Puebla is the fourth largest city in Mexico, capital of the state of Puebla and is known for it's rich colonial history and cuisine.  I'd been to Puebla briefly on one of my first trips to Mexico and wanted to have a more in-depth look.  Puebla was founded in the early 16th century and became an important trade route for the Spanish  between Veracruz on the east coast and Mexico City.  Another notable piece of  Puebla history is the May 5, 1862 victory over the French forces then occupying Mexico. Now "Cinco de Mayo" is celebrated pretty much everywhere in the west though, in terms of Mexican revolutionary history, it was pretty insignificant and the French did come back and defeat the Mexican forces and remained until they were ultimately driven from Mexico. 

Puebla is noted for it's colonial architecture and the extensive use of Talavera tile on buildings.  

From Puebla you can also see (when the air is clear enough) most of Mexico's highest mountains, the volcanoes

  La Malinche, 4461m,

 

Popocatépetl, 5426m, 

 Iztaccíhuatl, 5286m and Pico de Orizaba, Mexico's highest mountain and 3rd highest in the North America at 5636m.  Unfortunately the air quality was poor on my visit and only La Malinche and Popocatépetl were dimly visible. 

Mexico - 2018 More Miguel Lerdo de Tejada Library, etc

Also at the Miguel Lerdo de Tejada Library was an exhibit of the works of Luis Filcher, a Ukrainian artist.  I quite like his pen and ink drawings and what looks to me like charcoal sketches, watercolours?
 

  
Leaving the library, I continued further into the centro

Alfonso recommended that I visit the Ideal Bakery.  

 There's that piper and drummer again between cakes

The Ideal is an extremely busy bakery occupying two floors on a busy pedestrian mall.  Have you ever seen more elaborate wedding cakes? I saw the kind of buns I like there and have had hard time finding in Mexico City but it would have taken me probably half an hour in line to buy one. 

Mexico - 2018 Miguel Lerdo de Tejada Library

I spent the better part of one day just wandering around downtown in conjunction with some errand, just seeing what I could see, looking for photo ops, admiring the old buildings. 

This looked intriguing 

so I looked for a way into the building around it and entered what had once been a chapel: la Capilla de la Emperatriz del Palacio Nacional.  In the mid 19th century it was turned into a theatre and in the 1960s, converted to the Miguel Lerdo de Tejada Library, housing publications of an economic nature operated by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico.  


It's a lovely space but what's most arresting are the murals that fill the entire space.  

These were created by the Russian-Mexican painter, Vladimir Victorovich Kibalchich Rusakov, known as Vlady, who came to Mexico as a refugee from Russia with his father.  He was greatly influenced by the Mexican muralists and his murals continued the revolutionary theme.  

What a pleasant surprise to stumble on this place.  It's not on the tourist track and my friend, Alfonso, had not heard of it.  When I was there I neglected to take down any information and spent a long time finding information about it.  

This was my first surprise of the day.

Mexico 2018 - Museo Rufino Tamayo

Rufino Tamayo was another very important Mexican artist. Born in Oaxaca of Zapotec heritage, he was active in mid twentieth century in Mexico and New York.  After his parents died, he moved to Mexico City where an aunt enrolled him in art school and he dabbled with various art movements and acquired his skills.  When he left school he went to work for José Vasconcelos at the Department of Ethnographic Drawings.  Vasconcelos was a very influential figure in education and art it seems, referring to my last post.  It turns out that there are other libraries in Mexico City that bear his name.  But, back to Tamayo.  In his art he expressed what he envisioned as the traditional Mexico and eschewed the overt political art of such contemporaries as José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros. He disagreed with these muralists in their belief that the revolution was necessary for the future of Mexico but considered, instead, that the revolution would harm Mexico.  In any case, the museum he created in Mexico City is very modern and quite beautiful.  

 

A few of his works:

Rufino Tamayo (right)