Merida City Tour

This morning, Tere picked me up, and drove me to Downtown Merida where we first stopped at the Monument to the Fatherland, which is a large structure which depicts on one side, the history of the Mayan people and on the other, the modern history of the Mexican people. It is located at the terminus of a major boulevard that is meant to emulate the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Here are both sides:




Monument to the Fatherland, Mayan history side.




Monument to the Fatherland, Mexican history side.


After the monument, we went to the historic downtown area where we walked all around the Grand Place, as interestingly the name of their main square is taken from the French rather than the Spanish that one would expect in this part of the world. There is a huge cathedral, one of the first in the Americas here (I believe Tere said that it was the second). It was built in the mid-1500s.



Cathedral of Merida

After viewing the church, we went to the Governor's mansion, where we actually we lucky enough to see her finishing an address to a bunch of youths who were going to be representing the Yucatan in the youth Olympics that apparently Mexico has each several years or so. The mansion has murals all over it that depict the history of the area. Some of them were very interesting. Some of them just had a bunch of Mayans dying from the diseases brought by the Spaniards... Those weren't as nice... At any rate, here is the mansion:




The outside of the mansion.




The courtyard of the mansion.




One of the murals in the mansion.




The mural-lined ballroom of the mansion.


After hearing the story of every single mural in the place, I spent some free time in the Grand Place, where they have free wifi and electrical plugs every 10 feet or so, to promote education and the use of the Internet among the youth of Merida. After my free time in the square, I was taken back to the Hacienda. Tomorrow we leave Merida for another Mayan ruin and some caves. Should be another great day!




View of the Merida municipal building from the Grand Place.


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