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CULTURAL VISITS

SPOUSES PROGRAMME

Option 1 - Bosque de Chapultepec Option 2 - Centro Histórico -Castillo de Chapultepec -Palacio Nacional

-Bosque de Chapultepec -Templo Mayor

-Museo de Antropología -Palacio de Bellas Artes

More details on pages: 4-6 More details on pages: 7-10

Date: Friday October 16 2015 Friday October 16 2015

Departure time: 10:00 hrs 10:00 hrs

Duration: 5 hrs 5 hrs

Departure from: Palacio de Minería Palacio de Minería

Deadline to register:

Thursday 8 October 2015

Thursday 8 October 2015

For registration and more

information please contact:

Adriana Pérez Adriana Pérez

adriana@imagineventos.com adriana@imagineventos.com

Tel: + 52 (55) 5696 7598 Tel: + 52 (55) 5696 7598

Includes:

Transfer & lunch at El Lago Restaurant or Meridien Restaurant

Transfer & lunch at El Cardenal

Restaurant

Notes: It requires at least 6 persons It requires at least 6 persons

CULTURAL VISITS MEXICO CITY

Option 1 – Xochimilco

Option 2 -Teotihuacán

More details on page: 11

More details on page: 12

Date: Saturday October 17 2015 Saturday October 17 2015

Departure time: 9:00 hrs 9:00 hrs

Duration: 5 hours 6 hours

Departure from: Palacio de Minería Palacio de Minería

Deadline to register:

Thursday 8 October 2015 Thursday 8 October 2015

For registration and more

information please contact:

Adriana Pérez Adriana Pérez

adriana@imagineventos.com adriana@imagineventos.com

Tel: + 52 (55) 5696 7598 Tel: + 52 (55) 5696 7598

Includes: Transfer & brunch in the Trajinera Transfer & lunch at La Gruta Restaurant

Notes: It requires at least 6 persons It requires at least 6 persons

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Friday 16 October 2015

Saturday 17 October 2015

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CULTURAL VISIT CITY OF OAXACA

(2 DAYS)

Two day Tour to City of Oaxaca, México Visiting cultural, and archeological sites in Mexico’s unique Istmo region

More details on page 13

Date: Saturday October 17th and Sunday October 18th 2015

Departure time: Saturday 7:00 hrs

Duration: 2 days, scheduled to return Sunday 18th at 20:00 hrs

Departure from: Pick up to be scheduled

Deadline to register: Thursday 1th October 2015

For registration and more

information please contact:

Adriana Pérez

adriana@imagineventos.com

5696 7598

Includes: - Transport from Mexico´s City hotel to airport -Air transportation Mexico - Oaxaca - México

-Saturday all day tour of Oaxaca -Saturday Lunch

-Saturday Dinner at Restuarante Pitiona -Night accommodation at Hotel Quinta Real Oaxaca

-Sunday Breakfast at hotel -Sunday tour of Oaxaca

-Sunday Lunch at Restaurant Casa Oaxaca -Transport to Airport

Notes: For Mayors and Minters with their spouses

MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits

Chapultepec Castle

The Chapultepec Castle is one of the most important historical

buildings in Mexico City and it is located on top of Chapultepec Hill.

Built during the Viceroyalty in Mexico, the Chapultepec Castle is the

only castle in Latin America. It was home to the royal family and

residence of Emperor Maximilian. Years later the Castle became a

military academy and it was the first astronomical observatory in the

country. By the end of the 19th Century, Chapultepec Castle

became a presidential residence until president Lázaro Cárdenas

ordered in 1939, to create the National History Museum.

Besides the historical value of its objects and art, the magnificent

building allows us to learn how presidents and emperors used to

live, as well as granting us a beautiful view, considered by many the

best in the whole city.

One of the museum´s main attractions are the mural paintings,

which reflect Mexico´s history. Its walls show murals from Mexican

artists like José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

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Chapultepec Park

6th OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015

Chapultepec, which name means "Hill of the grasshopper" in

náhuatl, is America's oldest and one of the most traditional city

parks in the world .It is considered the favorite place of recreation for

Mexican families.

Chapultepec Park has been a very prominent place in Mexico´s

history. Its origins back to prehistoric times, the Mexica civilization

after consolidating its power over the Valley of Mexico, established

a sanctuary and gardens for the rest and calm of aztec emperors.

With an area of 647 hectares, the Chapultepec Park is divided in

three sections. It is one of the largest green oasis in Mexico City and

one of the most charming places to visit; it represents 52% of green

areas of Mexico city.

The Chapultepec Zoo, the Botanical Garden and several interesting

museums, including the Museum of Modern Art Rufino Tamayo, are

among the attractions you can enjoy in Chapultepec Park.

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National Museum

of Anthropology and History

Considered one of the most important museums in the world, the

National Museum of Anthropology and History of Mexico City,

has the largest collection of pre-Columbian art and it́ s consid-

ered one of the largest museums of Latin America.

The museum is divided into 23 rooms. There is a space

dedicated to the first nomadic tribes and another to the Olmec

culture, which raised over three thousand years ago. There

are also rooms dedicated to the Maya, Zapotec, Toltec, and

Mexica or Aztec, and Teotihuacan cultures. In its gardens

you can find replicas of stelas and sculptures from famous

archaeological zones in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Yucatan.

The exhibitions display unique pieces of pre-Hispanic art, also

reproductions of some important buildings of Mesoamerican

cultures.

The architecture is in itself a source of beauty and attractiveness;

it has a great dome from which water falls in homage to Tláloc,

god of the rain of the ancient Aztec civilization.

Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, Mexican famed architect was

commissioned to design this museum. One year after its

opening, he won the gold medal at the International

Architecture Biennale, held in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits

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Historical Centre

Few cities in the world have such a rich and

ancient history as Mexico City; a city which

metropolitan zone has been the seat of

important human settlements for more than

two thousand years.

· 6th OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015

The Historical Centre is the oldest part of Mexico City and it’s

also the area that contalfins some of the most appreciated

cultural treasures of the country. The Centre, as the inhabitants

of the city call it, is an area of streets which invites us to travel to

the past and remember its times of splendor. Times in which

viceroys and high-ranking officials traveled upon horse-drawn

carriages, whilst merchants, friars and nuns, craftsmen and

other characters walked through the famous and beautiful

streets of the “City of Palaces”..

In the Historical Centre of Mexico City, you can find true

architectural treasures like the Metropolitan Cathedral; built

over three centuries, it comprises different styles of the

viceroyship. Just a few steps away from the Cathedral, you

can find the National Palace, seat of the Mexican Executive

Power, and the City Hall, both of them in front of the city’s

Zócalo (public square) or Square of the Constitution (second

largest in the World after Moscow’s Red Square).

Walking towards the area of the Alameda Central, on the street

5 de mayo, we find ourselves surronded by outstanding

examples of porfirian eclectic architecture. Not far from there,

on Tacuba Street, we can find some of the city’s traditional

places, like the Tacuba Café, a pleasant restaurant; decorated

in Mexican style with Talavera mosaic and where they serve

exquisite traditional Mexican dishes.

The Historical Centre of Mexico City is such an amazing place

that we could never finish mentioning all of its great features and

legends; same of which have come to be part of a national

legacy, which has led the UNESCO to declare it “Cultural

Heritage of the World”. An intense campaign of restoration has

been undertaken over the last few years to regenerate the zone,

giving it back the splendor and dynamism that characterized it

in earlier times.

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MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits

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Palace of Fine Arts

· OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015

Maximum forum of art and culture in Mexico, the Palace of Fine

Arts surprises Mexicans and foreigners alike with its ostentatious

architecture, in which two styles come together in a harmonious

and elegant fashion: the Art Nouveau of its exterior with the Art

Deco of its interior.

The construction of the Palace of Fine Arts began in 1904 with a

proposal by the Italian architect Adamo Boari to create a

new national theatre that would take part in the celebrations

of the 100th Anniversary of Mexico’s independence.

The new National Theatre was conceived to be one of the

largest in the world and expected to be in the same league as

important forums like the Opera of Paris. Nevertheless, the

project was postponed by the outbreak of the Mexican

Revolution in 1910, leaving behind an eclectic dream built in

Carrara marble and the magnificent Crystal curtain designed

by a prestigious firm which serves as a background for the

presentations of diverse national and international orchestras

who visit the palace.

Years later, during the government of President Pascual Ortíz

Rubio, it was decided that the construction of the building

should be resumed, and the project was given to the

Mexican architect Federico Mariscal, author of other

architectonic jewels of the Art Deco style in Mexico, like the

“La Nacional” building. This architect had the difficult task of

reconciling the Art Nouveau of the exterior with the

architectonic styles of the time, achieving a wonderful

integration between both and creating one of the most

outstanding Art Deco interiors in the world, with the use of

lamps and details which were inspired in Mexico’s indigenous

past. The interior walls were decorated with works by the most

outstanding Mexican muralist of the time like Diego Rivera,

David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, Juan O’Gorman

and Rufino Tamayo, among others.

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Templo Mayor

MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits

Under the hustle and bustle of modern Mexico City lie the ruins of the pre-Hispanic Aztec capital,

once known as Tenochtitlan. At the center of this ancient empire was the Templo Mayor, the most

important religious area for the Aztecs. Archaeologists discovered it under the Mexico City Metro-

politan Cathedral, located in the Zocalo, in the mid-1900s and excavated in the 1970s. Still an

active site, archeologists are continuously unearthing artifacts and structures. Visitors can view sections of the two main religious temples (dedicated to the god of war and rain

god), pyramids, serpent carvings, and shrines. Archeologists also recently discovered a ceremo-

nial platform that they hope will provide deeper insight into Aztec culture and rituals.

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Xochimilco

6th OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015

Xochimilco, which in the náhuatl dialect means “place of the flowery orchad” is one of the areas in

Mexico City in which the lake-based society that once characterized the whole Valley of Mexico

still remains, and takes part in a society full of traditions that has centuries of history, and has been

declared Cultural and Natural Heritage of the World by the UNESCO. The lacustrine landscape of Xochimilco, located 28 km south of the city, constitutes the only

reminder of traditional Pre-Hispanic land use in the lagoons of the Mexico City basin. In the midst

of a network of small canals, on the edge of the residual lake of Xochimilco (the southern arm of

the great drained lake of Texcoco), some chinampas or “floating” gardens can still be found. Parts

of this half-natural, half-artifical landscape are now an “ecological reserve”.

Xochimilco forms part of a cultural World Heritage site but on a national level it is also a protected

natural area, which leads to the involvement in the managment of the Ministry of the Environment,

which acts through the Natural Resources Commission of the government of Mexico City. Both areas have Managment Plans. Sustainable implementation of the defined planning tools and

the allocation of resources to conservation and managment are necessary means to ensure the

conservation of the Outstanding Universal value of the property in the long term. In the case of

Xochimilco, the city government of Mexico City published a decree on 11 December 2012, in

which “The Authority in the zone of Natural and Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Xochimilco,

Tlahuac and Milpa Alta" was created. The site is being comprehensively analyzed in order to

identify priority actions in the fields of managment, conservation and regeneration of water from

springs and canals, Chinampas zone recovery, land in areas adjacent to water bodies and as the

protection of historical monuments area, considering the participation in the social, cultural,

ecological and academic aspects.

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Teotihuacan

MEXICO CITY Cultural Visits

Teotihuacan, which in náhuatl means: “The city of the gods” or “The place where the gods are

made”. It is one of the most impressive places of Mexico and of the world, being the site where

knowledge spiritual and material of Mesoamerican peoples, generated the highest architectural

expression, urban and artistic of the American continent. As a sign of the high degree of civilization that reached that culture, today remain some of the

most impressive pre-Hispanic buildings in the world, such as the pyramid of the Sun ( the second

largest in Mexico), the pyramid of the Moon, the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, among others. All of them

aligned around a great Avenue of more than 2 kilometres that has been called “The street of

the dead” because of the large number of small pyramids on its path, which led to the first

archaeologists in the area believe it was of mausoleum.

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City of Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca

Oaxaca is located in Southwestern Mexico. The state is best

known for its cultural tradition of the indigenous peoples, the most

numerous and best known are the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, but

there are sixteen more that are officially recognized. These

cultures have survived better than most others in Mexico due to

the state's rugged and isolating terrain.

The rich cultural tradition of the city of Oaxaca de Juárez is highly

concentrated within its historical core, where visitors may enjoy a

stroll around the main square known as the Zocalo, and along the

tree-lined avenue called the Alameda de Leon.

Oaxaca de Juarez also contains two remarkable buildings worth

the visit, the Government Palace, built with quite an exquisite

green stone locally quarried; and the Municipal Palace, formerly

the convent of La Soledad and built in the XVII century.

As with everything else in Oaxaca, archeological sites are

counted by the thousands uninterruptedly inhabited for no less

than 11,000 years, the state has witnessed the evolution of the

first American settlers, the first agricultural fields and the first great

urban centers. In Oaxaca, historical tales appear to have no end.

El Lugar de los Muertos or the Place of the Dead represents one

of the most important archeological sites, known also as Mitla for

its nahuatl name, was an ancient ceremonial city and the most

sacred of spiritual centers of the region during the Classical

period, as it was dedicated to the teachings regarding the

equilibrium to be found in Quetzalcoatl and which allowed those

who learned to transcend and cross the threshold into divinity.

Monte Alban was also a sacred site for the cultures of the

Olmecas and the Zapotecas, built from the year 500 BC, and

which operated for 1,300 continuous years until it was finally

abandoned in the year 850 of our time.

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6th OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers, Mexico City 2015