Mexico City

I forgot to include Gandhi, but, yes.

Done, c.i!

(By the way, if -in your visit to Havana, you happen to go by Infanta St. near downtown, my mother lived there as a child... and don't forget to have your mojito at La Bodeguita and your daiquiri at El Floridita).

Been to both places several times; almost every time I'm in Havana, we go to La Bodeguita for drinks or for a meal in the back. As for Floridita, we have our daiguiri while listening to some great music, and trying to sit next to Ernest Hemingway's statue sitting at the end of the bar.

This was taken from the roof of the Parque Central Hotel.


Waiting for our table at the La Guarida parador; one of the most famous in Havana. We saw Susan Sarandon there on our last visit to Cuba.


Taken from the roof bar at the Saratoga Hotel.


Hemingway at the Floridita.


Musicians at the Dos Hermanos bar


Another Hemingway hangout for mojitos

I looked up Infanta Street, but we have never gone into that area of Havana. We usually stick by Obispo, and the other squares on the east side of town. We also go to Melia Havana Hotel located some distance from downtown to have some drinks at the bar, smoke a cigar, and have dinner at the Japanese restaurant there. We know the waiter there. We used to know some of the bar tenders and manager, but none were there during our last visit.

I stayed there once with two girlfriends, probably '70, was knocked out by the architecture et al, loved it.

Back to Mexico City.

We are now west of the first section of Chapultepec, and north of the second section. At Lomas de Chapultepec (originally Chapultepec Heights, in English), one of the traditional neighborhoods for the rich and very rich:





If you live in Las Lomas and don't have a car, you're doomed (and probably you work for somebody who lives there).

I beg your pardon. I thought that hotel was in Mexico City. But I get your point re moving on.

East of Las Lomas, there is another upper class neighborhood, Polanco.

A few decades ago, it was mostly residential, and mostly houses like this one:



Now, only a few of those mansions remain, often as stores, and a lot of buildings have surged. This is the Polanco skyline:



It's still ritzy, but not as much as Lomas, full of stores, restaurants and other businesses, and has terrible traffic.
This is Presidente Masaryk, the avenue of "nice stores".

Wow.

One of the nicest places in Polanco is Parque Lincoln.



Hey, two waiters from the nearby restaurants are having a stroll!

Of course, Abraham Lincoln presides this park:



... and Matin Luther King faces Lincoln:

Sorry osso, I wasn't really replying to your post. The hotel is, of course, and as you well know it, in Mexico City. I meant "back to Mexico City" in referral to Cicerone's pics of Havana.

Oddly, Polanco has a "downtown". I think it's kind of cute:

Polanco is so "in" that neighboring Colonia Irrigación and Colonia Granada often advertise themselves as Polanco (specially real state agents).

This is a posh mall at Irrigación, "Antara Polanco":



This is the kinds of buildings that populate "Nuevo Polanco" (parts of Irrigación, Granada and even working class Colonia Anáhuac)



And this is Museo Soumaya, at Irrigación... err... I meant "Polanco":

Sorry for being snippy - not only to you, whom I listen to except when arguing - I did this yesterday to someone whose posts I appreciate on other subjects. Slaps self.

What is going on is that for a while we can't just Reply All.
Some of us are now doing this

@ all
or some version of that.

That's true in california too. People in lower Venice claim Marina del Rey and the post office has let them.
Hiss.
Biggo real estate market over some areas that used to be red-lined.

On the contrary, I love to say I live in Anzures, even if my neighborhood is adjacent to Polanco. I happen to think it's nicer to live in. But Hotel Camino Real, very much in Anzures, says "Polanco".

I say I live(d) in Venice, home of Sholine Crips and V13, and other history including mine.
It's others who long have wished to be marina, and so on, re property come ons, who fancify.
That's another thread, just trying to be clear.

@ all

A vecindad in Colonia Anáhuac, right next to "Nuevo Polanco".



Many vecindades in the zone have been turned into buildings like this one:



Not much to see in Colonias Anáhuac, Tlatilco and Verónica Anzúres, if you ask me. Except for a skyscraper, the Pemex Tower... if you work for Pemex.

We are moving northeast... and arrive at Barrio de Tacuba, another ancient Aztec city.

Not much left of the Aztecs, though. Rather some impressive colonial churches:



... and a few interesting old houses in the middle of streets with homely buildings:





In the Aztec times, there was a street leading from Tenochtitlan to Tacuba; it was used by the Spaniards as they fled when defeated by the Aztecs. They arrived close to Tacuba, at what is now Colonia Popotla.
Cortés was so sad and frustrated that he sat under a tree and wept.
It is "The Tree of the Sad Night":



Popotla is also home to the old Military Academy:

Eeek, on the Pemex tower.