TOWN SQUARE

    Today was Zocolo, Mexico City's town square. 500 years ago, it was also the town square,the most sacred place in all of Aztec Mexico. Happily, it was only a couple of blocks from our hotel.

    The Templo Mayor, or main temple, was the Aztec version of St. Peter's Cathedral. The Spaniards, of course, destroyed it and used the stones to construct their Catedral Metropolitana, so what we visited today was the remains of the original temple.

    And what a temple it was. The ancient Egyptians built ever larger pyramids to out-do each other, but the Aztecs did them one better. Each Aztec chief simply built a larger pyramid over the existing one, and archaeologists have uncovered no fewer than seven bigger-and-better pyramids, as can be seen in this photo.

    The Temple Mayor museum is astonishing, and we spent three hours there, until our backs gave out. There's an out-door section about a city block large showing various pieces of the seven layers of pyramids. My favorite was two enormous snakes on either side of the grand staircase leading, supposedly up to the great alter. The indoor museum is modern and beautifully laid out with explanatory notes in Spanish and English tracing

the history of the Aztec's building their beautiful city of Tenochititlan. One of the most striking exhibits was a stone goddess (forget her name) who was chopped up in pieces (representing the death of the moon and the triumph of the sun). Note that the people next to the stone show how large the stone carving was.

    I can't help feeling great sadness for Montezuma, the poet/philosopher emperor who surrendered to what he supposed was the promised god (Cortez) with his strange animals (horses) and means of killing people (guns). Yes, the Aztecs were a war-like people, and yes, they sacrificed humans (who thought they'd be sent straight to heaven, so it wasn't all that bad), but his civilization was in many ways more advanced than that of his Spanish conquers. The museum is a testament to the greatness of that civilization.

    Since we were so close to the museum, Bob and I came back for some R&R before heading back out to view the rest

of the modern Zocalo. We strolled through the Catedral Metropolitana which the Spaniards built after destroying the Temple Mayor. It's an over-the-top confection with a collection of dusty saints. Then we tried to visit the Palacio Nacional (formerly Montazum'a palace) with its famous Diego Rivera murals, but there was such a long line waiting to enter that we gave it a pass for today. Besides, we'd grown weary of the streams of people flowing in and around the Zocolo. What we yearned for was some space and quiet.

    Back to the hotel for a nap and later, thanks to a thunder storm, we dined in, giving us time to bring this blog up to date.