A CULTURAL CROWN JEWEL: MEXICO CITY

This is a wondrous, exotic, mysterious and international metropolis of infinite variety and one of Latin America's key centers of finance and art. It blends old and new worlds and is dynamic, colorful and extraordinary.

Like an enormous living museum, Mexico City is a remarkable showplace for Mexico's 3,000 years of human cultural achievement. It is not only the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Western Hemisphere, but also carries the burden of being the largest city the world has ever seen.

Mexico City is considered the crown jewel of Mexico's enormous cultural heritage. You can stroll through five centuries of culture in one afternoon. Here you will find the world's finest museums, splendid churches and spectacular contemporary architecture. Palaces and pyramids, castles and convents are brimming with the splendors of colonial art, the finest pre-Hispanic artifacts and the brilliance of Mexico's contemporary artists.

One artist stood out as special during my visit to Mexico City -Frida Kahlo. She risked her life for her art, and became one of the greatest painters of the 20th century. She was a painter, revolutionary and woman of the world. Her stormy relationship with Mexico's brilliant muralist Diego Rivera, her tender hospitality for an exiled Leon Trotsky, her struggle for acceptance as an artist, her affairs and the travail of her illness and injuries sparked my interest.

In Mexico City's charming Coyoacan neighborhood, Mexican culture and Soviet politics became interconnected in the 1930s through two important people: Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo risked her life for her art, and became one of the greatest painters of the 20th century. She was a painter, revolutionary and woman of the world. Her stormy relationship with Mexico's brilliant muralist Diego Rivera, her tender hospitality for an exiled Leon Trotsky, her struggle for acceptance as an artist, her affairs and the travail of her illness and injuries sparked my interest.

In the Frida Kahlo Museum you can see where she was born and lived for 25 years with her husband Diego Rivera in a tumultuous marriage. This adobe house was a popular gathering place of intellectuals in the 30s and 40s and is now a public museum.

The essence of Frida dominates the house-bright colors - the traditional embroidered dresses she loved to wear, her personal photos, combs and brushes are on display. About 50 of the artist's self-taught work are on display, including some of the surrealistic self-portraits reflecting the obsession with health problems that plagued most of her life.

Close to Frida's Museum is the Leon Trotsky Museum. The high-walled, fortress-like dwelling holds Trotsky's modest belongings. This is where he lived and this was where he was assassinated by the Stalin regime. A mile to the west is the neighborhood of San Angel where you can visit Diego Rivera's Studio Museum.

While in San Angel plan to have a marvelous dining experience at San Angel Inn, one of the capital's best known restaurants. It is in an old Carmelite monastery converted into an extraordinary restaurant. Spacious flower-crowned gardens with their ancient trees and authentic stone fountains please the eye as much as do expertly prepared Mexican and International dishes please your palate.

To eat more casually, go further south to the "floating gardens" of Xochimilco. In Aztec times, with prime farmland being scarce, the Indians developed a system of floating reed mats loaded with soil and used them as gardens. Visitors float in very colorful and festive flat-bottomed boats through what is left of the once enormous agrarian canal system that fed the Aztec capital.

Cruising leisurely on a trajiners (as the gaily decorated boats are called) on the canal is quite an adventure. Our boat provided a catered lunch consisting of tasty Mexican finger foods. Boats kept passing us full of local folks having fun on the weekend. Souvenir and food vendors, serenading musicians and an eager photographer wearing a giant sombrero pulled beside our boat, all hoping to attract our attention.