This is the Palacio Nacional (a parliament building) in front of Mexico City Historical Centre's Main Square (El Zocalo).
The streets of Mexico City have been developed by the Spanish Conquistadors and therefore have a strong European feel to them.
This was our hotel (Hotel Principal) -- pretty good for $30 a night for a private room with shower.
There is a tourist bus that you can sit on and it takes you everywhere. We didn't have the chance to take it -- we preferred to see the city by walking around and taking the subway.
Templo Mayor is an ancient temple that was only recently discovered (1978) in the middle of Mexico City's Historical Centre.
As we are nearing Christmas time, huge festive designs of angels singing and children trying to hit pinatas are drawn up on buildings in the city centre.
A side view of the Palacio Nacional with a market area bustling about, hoping to sell some souvenirs to passing tourists on their way to the palace.
We saw two priests in traditional dress performing cleansing rituals as a paid service, which consisted of chanting, dancing, shaking leaves, and an infusion of heavy copal incense smoke.
A market kiosk selling cigarettes.
The markets can get pretty packed, pretty quick here. Watch your purse and/or pockets!!
Copal incense vendor.
Vendors selling chicks and chickens for the dinner table.
National Museum of Archeology is the #1 site on the tourist hit list in Mexico City. The entrance to all the rooms within the museum is this huge courtyard covered by the largest suspended mass held up by a single cement pillar.
A carving recreated from the Chichen Itza Mayan ruins with a jaguar eating a human heart.
Chac Mool Statue -- Also found inside the El Palacio pyramid at the Chichen Itza Ruins.
This was my favourite ceramic pot from the museum. It is a sculpture of a medicine man integrated with a vase.
A famously ornate facade at one of the Mayan ruins.
Below the warrior's head in the previous art piece lies this gargoyle which I found rather cute.
