Mexico City – Castillo de Chapultepec

This building, now a museum, stands atop a hill overlooking all of the Chapultepec park. It’s most famous occupants, were the Emperor Maximilian and his lovely wife Carlota. After they were executed, the building went through a whole host of roles before reaching its final purpose today as the National Museum of History. It’s an amazing building to visit, for both the internal and external features.


Getting up to the castle can be either fun or hard, depending on which option you choose. The fun option is to hop on the little train that will take you up the long, steep drive in an efficient, if slightly infantile way. The real man’s way is to walk up. Well, the really, really man’s way is to jog up. There seemed to be any number of lunatics jogging up and down all day, including a few military dudes. These guys were all grunting in unison and singing songs - how camp!

Once you get to the top, there are some pretty impressive views over the surrounding park and city. Mexico City is a fairly low rise city, but there are quite a few funky buildings visible from the top. If you’re cheap and don’t want to pay to get into the museum, the view if probably worth the trip.

Inside the castle, there are a lot of displays of artefacts, military paraphernalia and lots of royal junk. You can wander around the old state rooms, all beautifully decorated in the European style of the time. For me, it was all a bit dull. It wasn’t quite up to the standards of Europe and just seemed a bit try hard. A bit nouveau riche comes to Mexico.

For many years, the building was the official residence of the President. Well, one president in particular, Porfirio Diaz. He ruled Mexico with an iron first for an awfully long time. Not only that, but his interior decoration skills leave a lot to be desired as well.


For me, the highlight was all the murals. Around the main grand staircase, is a rather grand mural showing Independence. There’s also a rather nice mural room at the back of the building. For me though, the best mural was the entire wing devoted to the story of the Niños Heroes. It’s simply stunning. It’s just so large, so detailed and so vibrant. I spent quite a long time in this room admiring it. It’s so famous, that a slot from mural was used as the cover of the album by an artist in the nineties, but I can't remember who! This is, after all, the castle the niños were defending, so it’s appropriate that they have a grand mural inside the building.

The castle is a great place to wander around for an hour or so to enjoy the murals. You can even see the exact cliff where one of the Niños jumped off, wrapped in the flag. I wouldn’t recommend emulating his leap. Sure, it takes a while to walk back down to the park, but you end up a lot less dead! 