Walking on the cobbled streets through the cool leafy tree lined colonial avenues of Coyoacan you might expect to bump into Diego Rivera, flowers in hand returning to ‘Casa Azul’ and his beloved Frida Kahlo after another one of his infidelities.
This quaint little borough of Mexico City seems a million miles away from the bustling traffic jams of central ‘Distrito Federal’. It’s actually only 10kms from the Centro Historico by a short ride on metro line 3 south of the city. The ‘Casa Azul’ is now the home of the Frida Kahlo Museum and the main attraction for many tourists visiting Coyoacan. We took our tour of the Blue House on a Saturday morning, I’m a huge Frida fan so the visit deserves a separate blog!
Coyoacan is a small charming spanish style village, where house fronts look small but then open onto beautiful fern filled courtyards. The name means ‘place of coyotes’, there’s a centrepiece fountain complete with bronze statues of the doggies in the Plaza to sit by and let time slip by. We visited on a sunny Saturday afternoon to experience all the happy mexican family weekend goings on. In the two plazas, balloon and bubble sellers are popular with children and that grunty little pink Peppa Pig gets everywhere!
Coyoacan Saturday markets are busy with both locals buying their provisions and tourists buying artisan gifts. On the streets all around the main plaza ‘pop up stalls’ are selling art, hand made gifts and of course there’s a huge amount of take away food to be sampled. Tourists are licking ice creams in the cafes, street vendors are serving tacos and tamales. Elotes are being munched on, these are hot corn on the cobs smothered in mayonnaise and chilli powder, we’ve yet to try one!
We headed through Plaza del Centenario to the Parish church of San Juan Bautista. Built in 1552, it is one of three oldest churches in Mexico City. The church bells were ringing, men in shiny suits and women in very elaborate outfits were streaming out of the church doors confetti in their hands to throw on a smiling bride and groom. As soon as one happy bride came out, another nervous looking fluffy white bride was ready to go in.
We went in for a look and stepped into a flower filled, ornately decorated and probably one of the prettiest churches I’ve ever been in. We then proceeded to gatecrash the wedding of Pedro & Nicol. This was a family with money, they had a 8 piece orchestra, a soprano singing a ‘pass the tissue ‘ rendition of ‘Ave Maria’ and they had classily dressed guests. I say classy as some of the womens fashion dress style in Mexico is a mixture of ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ accessorised with hooker looking high heel shoes!
We clapped along with the guests when the happy couple were announced as husband and wife, then the best thing ever happened at a wedding…they walked down the aisle to the Star Wars, Darth Vader theme music ‘The Imperial March’ it was epic!.They got their pesos worth from that orchestra. We wished Pedro & Nicol ‘Felicidades’ as they stormtrooped by.
It was a great Saturday afternoon, people watching, market mooching and of course sampling a delicious ice cream..
Let me take you on a trip 