Mexico 2019 - More downtown

Continuing with my random explorations of downtown, I visited the Women's Museum which turned out to be not of huge interest to me as most of the exhibits entailed a lot of reading in Spanish.  I can do it to a degree but it takes quite a bit of effort and it was just too detailed for me so I didn't stay long.  There were some interesting objects:

From there I went down the street to the Museo Numismático Nacional, something I saw on the map, no idea what it was about.  I thought it might have been something about tires (pneumatic?) but the heavily armed army security at the entrance, flak jackets and scanning of bags, suggested something else.  Turns out to have been a foundry and coin making factory, hence numismatics which means the study or collection of coins, paper currency, and medals.  Aha, that explained the heavy security.  The factory was created in the 17th century originally for the purpose of separating the gold from the silver that came from the mines around the country.  If you like old machines, this is the place for you.  There were MACHINES!  

 The foundry

 Like something out of Dickens era London

The coin minting rooms