Floral Display
Alejandro sent me a photo which was sent to him by someone else. It is an aerial view of Mexico City's main plaza, the Zócalo, as it appears during this holiday season.
In past years, much of the vast plaza has been filled with a large ice-skating rink. It was free to the public, and certainly a cool experience for the capital's residents. However it was an ugly structure which detracted from the vistas in Mexico's City's historic center. This year the skating rink has been placed in a different location near the Monument to the Revolution, and a floral display with thousands of poinsettias has been placed on the Zócalo. (The poinsettia, a flower native to Mexico, is called the "flor de Nochebuena" in Spanish... the Christmas Eve flower. It was introduced to the United States in 1825 by Joel Poinsett, the first U.S. diplomat to Mexico.)
It appears that the design is an Aztec motif of an eagle, a bird which was sacred to the Aztecs, and which is today on the coat of arms and the flag of Mexico. I suspect that when you are standing on the plaza, you cannot appreciate the image that has been created with the flowers. However, the enormous quantity of poinsettias is surely an impressive sight and a big improvement over the unsightly skating rink that used to be there.
Hola Bill!
ReplyDeleteGreat picture. I wish I could be there to see it on the ground, or perhaps from the rooftop restaurant at the Best Western. I just discovered that my RSS feed to your (and many others') blog was not working. I think I've refreshed it, but I've missed a lot of your posts.
I hope you're well.
Saludos y un gran abrazo,
Kim G
Redding, CA
Where we're dying to get back to CDMX.
Thanks, Kim. All is well here, and I'll be back in Mexico in less than a month.
DeleteThank you so much for sharing this photo. I have seen most of this on the webcam, from a different angle, and was almost positive that is was a poinsettia display.
ReplyDeleteI was never a fan of the skating rink! LOL
Yes, this looks so much nicer than that skating rink!
DeleteBeautiful pic-thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, although I can't lay claim to the photograph.
DeleteThis would be very neat to see, especially from one of the rooftop restaurants. And I agree with the city's decision to move the ice rink and snowmobile track elsewhere, as they are cool but unsightly.
ReplyDeleteHappy holidays!
Yes. Although there have been some events on the Zócalo that I have enjoyed, most of the time I wish that they would stop putting ugly stuff up on the plaza. It is such an impressive sight, but half the time it seems that the view is spoiled with something set up there. The poinsettias are a beautiful idea for the holidays.
DeleteHappy holidays to you too, Scott!