October 2024

We visited Casa Azul, the blue house of painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) in the municipality of Coyoacan, Mexico City. The house is now a museum dedicated to Frida’s life and work, filled with art supplies, favorite objects, photographs and dresses. Museum materials describe Casa Azul as Frida’s “private universe,” which you feel the minute you enter. The space is a sanctuary—specific and personal to the woman whose likeness is arguably one of the most recognizable in modern times, whose paintings are unforgettable.

Close by Casa Azul is the home of Leon Trotsky, personal friend of Frida and Diego Rivera, who was exiled by Stalin from Russia, moved with his wife Natalia to Mexico City, and ultimately assassinated in his study in Coyoacan. After an informative stop there, we lunched on tostadas at the local market and snapped photos of the coyote fountain in the town square. Coyoacan in Nahuatl translates as “place of coyotes.”

In September, I took my first visit to Mexico City and wow! The museums, the food, the people, the history, the cultural pride. I love a place that closes Sunday streets for cyclists and pedestrians, offers salsa classes in its verdant parks, and grows papayas the size of footballs.

I went with Tim and our travel buddy Susan, logging upwards of 17,000 steps a day as we trekked through the Zocalo or main plaza with its spectacular cathedral; the Palacio de Belles Artes, with monumental murals by Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco; the impressive and educational Anthropology and Templo Mayor museums; the tile stores and neighborhood streets.

We also explored the pyramids at Teotihuacan, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the famous blue house of Frida Kahlo, Casa Azul. Onward!