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CULTURAL VISITS
Friday 16 October 2015
SPOUSES PROGRAMME
Option 1 - Bosque de Chapultepec
-Castillo de Chapultepec
-Bosque de Chapultepec
-Museo de Antropología
More details on pages: 4-6
Date:
Departure time:
Duration:
Departure from:
Deadline to register:
For registration and more
information please contact:
Includes:
Notes:
Option 2 - Centro Histórico
-Palacio Nacional
-Templo Mayor
-Palacio de Bellas Artes
More details on pages: 7-10
Friday October 16 2015
10:00 hrs
5 hrs
Palacio de Minería
Thursday 8 October 2015
Friday October 16 2015
10:00 hrs
5 hrs
Palacio de Minería
Thursday 8 October 2015
Adriana Pérez
[email protected]
Tel: + 52 (55) 5696 7598
Adriana Pérez
[email protected]
Tel: + 52 (55) 5696 7598
Transfer & lunch at El Lago Restaurant or
Meridien Restaurant
Transfer & lunch at El Cardenal
Restaurant
It requires at least 6 persons
It requires at least 6 persons
Saturday 17 October 2015
Option 1 – Xochimilco
Option 2 -Teotihuacán
CULTURAL VISITS
MEXICO CITY
More details on page: 11
More details on page: 12
Date:
Departure time:
Duration:
Departure from:
Deadline to register:
Saturday October 17 2015
9:00 hrs
5 hours
Palacio de Minería
Thursday 8 October 2015
Saturday October 17 2015
9:00 hrs
6 hours
Palacio de Minería
Thursday 8 October 2015
Adriana Pérez
[email protected]
Tel: + 52 (55) 5696 7598
Adriana Pérez
[email protected]
Tel: + 52 (55) 5696 7598
For registration and more
information please contact:
Includes:
Notes:
Transfer & brunch in the Trajinera
It requires at least 6 persons
Transfer & lunch at La Gruta Restaurant
It requires at least 6 persons
2
CULTURAL VISIT
CITY OF OAXACA
(2 DAYS)
Two day Tour to City of Oaxaca, México
Visiting cultural, and archeological sites in Mexico’s unique Istmo region
More details on page 13
Date:
Saturday October 17th and Sunday October 18th 2015
Departure time:
Saturday 7:00 hrs
Duration:
2 days, scheduled to return Sunday 18th at 20:00 hrs
Departure from:
Pick up to be scheduled
Deadline to register:
Thursday 1th October 2015
For registration and more
information please contact:
Adriana Pérez
[email protected]
5696 7598
Includes:
- Transport from Mexico´s City hotel to airport
-Air transportation Mexico - Oaxaca - México
-Saturday all day tour of Oaxaca
-Saturday Lunch
-Saturday Dinner at Restuarante Pitiona
-Night accommodation at Hotel Quinta Real Oaxaca
-Sunday Breakfast at hotel
-Sunday tour of Oaxaca
-Sunday Lunch at Restaurant Casa Oaxaca
-Transport to Airport
Notes:
For Mayors and Minters with their spouses
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Chapultepec Castle
The Chapultepec Castle is one of the most important historical
buildings in Mexico City and it is located on top of Chapultepec Hill.
Built during the Viceroyalty in Mexico, the Chapultepec Castle is the
only castle in Latin America. It was home to the royal family and
residence of Emperor Maximilian. Years later the Castle became a
military academy and it was the first astronomical observatory in the
country. By the end of the 19th Century, Chapultepec Castle
became a presidential residence until president Lázaro Cárdenas
ordered in 1939, to create the National History Museum.
Besides the historical value of its objects and art, the magnificent
building allows us to learn how presidents and emperors used to
live, as well as granting us a beautiful view, considered by many the
best in the whole city.
One of the museum´s main attractions are the mural paintings,
which reflect Mexico´s history. Its walls show murals from Mexican
artists like José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits
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Chapultepec Park
Chapultepec, which name means "Hill of the grasshopper" in
náhuatl, is America's oldest and one of the most traditional city
parks in the world .It is considered the favorite place of recreation for
Mexican families.
Chapultepec Park has been a very prominent place in Mexico´s
history. Its origins back to prehistoric times, the Mexica civilization
after consolidating its power over the Valley of Mexico, established
a sanctuary and gardens for the rest and calm of aztec emperors.
With an area of 647 hectares, the Chapultepec Park is divided in
three sections. It is one of the largest green oasis in Mexico City and
one of the most charming places to visit; it represents 52% of green
areas of Mexico city.
The Chapultepec Zoo, the Botanical Garden and several interesting
museums, including the Museum of Modern Art Rufino Tamayo, are
among the attractions you can enjoy in Chapultepec Park.
6th OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015
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National Museum
of Anthropology and History
Considered one of the most important museums in the world, the
National Museum of Anthropology and History of Mexico City,
has the largest collection of pre-Columbian art and it´s considered one of the largest museums of Latin America.
The museum is divided into 23 rooms. There is a space
dedicated to the first nomadic tribes and another to the Olmec
culture, which raised over three thousand years ago. There
are also rooms dedicated to the Maya, Zapotec, Toltec, and
Mexica or Aztec, and Teotihuacan cultures. In its gardens
you can find replicas of stelas and sculptures from famous
archaeological zones in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Yucatan.
The exhibitions display unique pieces of pre-Hispanic art, also
reproductions of some important buildings of Mesoamerican
cultures.
The architecture is in itself a source of beauty and attractiveness;
it has a great dome from which water falls in homage to Tláloc,
god of the rain of the ancient Aztec civilization.
Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, Mexican famed architect was
commissioned to design this museum. One year after its
opening, he won the gold medal at the International
Architecture Biennale, held in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits
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Historical Centre
Few cities in the world have such a rich and
ancient history as Mexico City; a city which
metropolitan zone has been the seat of
important human settlements for more than
two thousand years.
The Historical Centre is the oldest part of Mexico City and it’s
also the area that contalfins some of the most appreciated
cultural treasures of the country. The Centre, as the inhabitants
of the city call it, is an area of streets which invites us to travel to
the past and remember its times of splendor. Times in which
viceroys and high-ranking officials traveled upon horse-drawn
carriages, whilst merchants, friars and nuns, craftsmen and
other characters walked through the famous and beautiful
streets of the “City of Palaces”..
In the Historical Centre of Mexico City, you can find true
architectural treasures like the Metropolitan Cathedral; built
over three centuries, it comprises different styles of the
viceroyship. Just a few steps away from the Cathedral, you
can find the National Palace, seat of the Mexican Executive
Power, and the City Hall, both of them in front of the city’s
Zócalo (public square) or Square of the Constitution (second
largest in the World after Moscow’s Red Square).
Walking towards the area of the Alameda Central, on the street
5 de mayo, we find ourselves surronded by outstanding
examples of porfirian eclectic architecture. Not far from there,
on Tacuba Street, we can find some of the city’s traditional
places, like the Tacuba Café, a pleasant restaurant; decorated
in Mexican style with Talavera mosaic and where they serve
exquisite traditional Mexican dishes.
The Historical Centre of Mexico City is such an amazing place
that we could never finish mentioning all of its great features and
legends; same of which have come to be part of a national
legacy, which has led the UNESCO to declare it “Cultural
Heritage of the World”. An intense campaign of restoration has
been undertaken over the last few years to regenerate the zone,
giving it back the splendor and dynamism that characterized it
in earlier times.
· 6th OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015
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MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits
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Palace of Fine Arts
Maximum forum of art and culture in Mexico, the Palace of Fine
Arts surprises Mexicans and foreigners alike with its ostentatious
architecture, in which two styles come together in a harmonious
and elegant fashion: the Art Nouveau of its exterior with the Art
Deco of its interior.
The construction of the Palace of Fine Arts began in 1904 with a
proposal by the Italian architect Adamo Boari to create a
new national theatre that would take part in the celebrations
of the 100th Anniversary of Mexico’s independence.
The new National Theatre was conceived to be one of the
largest in the world and expected to be in the same league as
important forums like the Opera of Paris. Nevertheless, the
project was postponed by the outbreak of the Mexican
Revolution in 1910, leaving behind an eclectic dream built in
Carrara marble and the magnificent Crystal curtain designed
by a prestigious firm which serves as a background for the
presentations of diverse national and international orchestras
who visit the palace.
Years later, during the government of President Pascual Ortíz
Rubio, it was decided that the construction of the building
should be resumed, and the project was given to the
Mexican architect Federico Mariscal, author of other
architectonic jewels of the Art Deco style in Mexico, like the
“La Nacional” building. This architect had the difficult task of
reconciling the Art Nouveau of the exterior with the
architectonic styles of the time, achieving a wonderful
integration between both and creating one of the most
outstanding Art Deco interiors in the world, with the use of
lamps and details which were inspired in Mexico’s indigenous
past. The interior walls were decorated with works by the most
outstanding Mexican muralist of the time like Diego Rivera,
David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, Juan O’Gorman
and Rufino Tamayo, among others.
· OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015
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Templo Mayor
Under the hustle and bustle of modern Mexico City lie the ruins of the pre-Hispanic Aztec capital,
once known as Tenochtitlan. At the center of this ancient empire was the Templo Mayor, the most
important religious area for the Aztecs. Archaeologists discovered it under the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, located in the Zocalo, in the mid-1900s and excavated in the 1970s. Still an
active site, archeologists are continuously unearthing artifacts and structures.
Visitors can view sections of the two main religious temples (dedicated to the god of war and rain
god), pyramids, serpent carvings, and shrines. Archeologists also recently discovered a ceremonial platform that they hope will provide deeper insight into Aztec culture and rituals.
MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits
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Xochimilco
Xochimilco, which in the náhuatl dialect means “place of the flowery orchad” is one of the areas in
Mexico City in which the lake-based society that once characterized the whole Valley of Mexico
still remains, and takes part in a society full of traditions that has centuries of history, and has been
declared Cultural and Natural Heritage of the World by the UNESCO.
The lacustrine landscape of Xochimilco, located 28 km south of the city, constitutes the only
reminder of traditional Pre-Hispanic land use in the lagoons of the Mexico City basin. In the midst
of a network of small canals, on the edge of the residual lake of Xochimilco (the southern arm of
the great drained lake of Texcoco), some chinampas or “floating” gardens can still be found. Parts
of this half-natural, half-artifical landscape are now an “ecological reserve”.
Xochimilco forms part of a cultural World Heritage site but on a national level it is also a protected
natural area, which leads to the involvement in the managment of the Ministry of the Environment,
which acts through the Natural Resources Commission of the government of Mexico City.
Both areas have Managment Plans. Sustainable implementation of the defined planning tools and
the allocation of resources to conservation and managment are necessary means to ensure the
conservation of the Outstanding Universal value of the property in the long term. In the case of
Xochimilco, the city government of Mexico City published a decree on 11 December 2012, in
which “The Authority in the zone of Natural and Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Xochimilco,
Tlahuac and Milpa Alta" was created. The site is being comprehensively analyzed in order to
identify priority actions in the fields of managment, conservation and regeneration of water from
springs and canals, Chinampas zone recovery, land in areas adjacent to water bodies and as the
protection of historical monuments area, considering the participation in the social, cultural,
ecological and academic aspects.
6th OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015
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Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan, which in náhuatl means: “The city of the gods” or “The place where the gods are
made”. It is one of the most impressive places of Mexico and of the world, being the site where
knowledge spiritual and material of Mesoamerican peoples, generated the highest architectural
expression, urban and artistic of the American continent.
As a sign of the high degree of civilization that reached that culture, today remain some of the
most impressive pre-Hispanic buildings in the world, such as the pyramid of the Sun ( the second
largest in Mexico), the pyramid of the Moon, the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, among others. All of them
aligned around a great Avenue of more than 2 kilometres that has been called “The street of
the dead” because of the large number of small pyramids on its path, which led to the first
archaeologists in the area believe it was of mausoleum.
MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits
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City of Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca
Oaxaca is located in Southwestern Mexico. The state is best
known for its cultural tradition of the indigenous peoples, the most
numerous and best known are the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, but
there are sixteen more that are officially recognized. These
cultures have survived better than most others in Mexico due to
the state's rugged and isolating terrain.
The rich cultural tradition of the city of Oaxaca de Juárez is highly
concentrated within its historical core, where visitors may enjoy a
stroll around the main square known as the Zocalo, and along the
tree-lined avenue called the Alameda de Leon.
Oaxaca de Juarez also contains two remarkable buildings worth
the visit, the Government Palace, built with quite an exquisite
green stone locally quarried; and the Municipal Palace, formerly
the convent of La Soledad and built in the XVII century.
As with everything else in Oaxaca, archeological sites are
counted by the thousands uninterruptedly inhabited for no less
than 11,000 years, the state has witnessed the evolution of the
first American settlers, the first agricultural fields and the first great
urban centers. In Oaxaca, historical tales appear to have no end.
El Lugar de los Muertos or the Place of the Dead represents one
of the most important archeological sites, known also as Mitla for
its nahuatl name, was an ancient ceremonial city and the most
sacred of spiritual centers of the region during the Classical
period, as it was dedicated to the teachings regarding the
equilibrium to be found in Quetzalcoatl and which allowed those
who learned to transcend and cross the threshold into divinity.
Monte Alban was also a sacred site for the cultures of the
Olmecas and the Zapotecas, built from the year 500 BC, and
which operated for 1,300 continuous years until it was finally
abandoned in the year 850 of our time.
6th OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015
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