Take a side trip into Mexico’s opulence
IN THE 1950s and ’60s – nearly five centuries after Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés built himself a palace in Mexico’s lush Cuernavaca – Rita Hayworth, Gary Cooper and Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton followed suit with their own lavish hideaways. Other notables attracted to the city have included Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I and his wife, as well as Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, the former shah of Iran, who began his exile there in 1979. Along with sun-seeking foreigners, the pastoral destination has drawn weekend visitors from nearby Mexico City, the wealthier of whom have built extravagant holiday homes with canyon vistas.
For years, news about drug crimes and kidnappings eclipsed the town’s storied past, frightening off tourists. But more recently, travel advisories have been scaled back. So, with visions of opulent Hollywood Golden Era mansions, I planned a one-night getaway to Cuernavaca as part of a winter escape to Mexico City.
A driver picked me up for the 20-kilometre trip south along the Mexico-Cuernavaca highway to what the 19th-century German explorer Alexander von Humboldt referred to as la ciudad de la eternal primavera, or the city of eternal spring.
In Mexico, a dazzling museum dives headlong into the Baroque period
We drove up into the verdant hills above Mexico City until the capital vanished from sight. The road turned serpentine, eventually reaching an elevation of 5,000 metres amid ravines and pine groves. Then, as we descended into the valley, I could see Cuernavaca, capital of the state of Morelos, in the distance, as well as the Popocatepetl and Ixtacihuatl volcanoes. Instead of the mansions that had filled my imagination, we passed tidy bungalows, schools letting out for the midday break, modest storefronts and splashy ice cream parlours.
Deposited at my hotel, I climbed the terra-cotta steps leading through the garden entryway and patio, and immediately knew I’d be reluctant to leave. The Hotel Boutique and Spa La Casa Azul envelopes the senses from the moment guests enter its bucolic courtyard, which includes a small, enclosed plaza with a mosaicked fountain at its centre. The whitewashed walls shrouded in bougainvillea and plush sofas in the surrounding open corridors add to the welcome. My room at La Casa Azul was equally intimate and tasteful, furnished with beautiful folkloric tapestries and carved wooden furniture.
When I was able to pull myself away, I encountered the same exotic ambiance at La India Bonita a short walk from the hotel. The restaurant, opened in 1933, is tucked into a patio encircled by palm trees, birds of paradise, bougainvillea and ferns. That afternoon, as I ate a burrito, the terrace was nearly all mine. I luxuriated in that, as well as the gallant service of the older waiters in their pressed shirts and slacks.
After lunch, I strolled to the Plaza de Armas, where I bought an ice cream cone from a vendor. Perched on a wrought-iron bench, I watched children cling to balloons and scamper among their parents, who were deep in animated debate, and the comings and goings of newspaper vendors and older men having their shoes shined. I realised then that instead of experiencing Hollywood’s glamour days, it was as if I’d stepped into a folkloric pageant.
But still, I didn’t need to look far for wealth and excess. Adjacent to the plaza is the conquistador’s magnificent home – the Palacio de Cortes – which was constructed in the 1520s atop an Aztec tribute-collection centre. The imposing structure, built in a style that blends Gothic and Islamic elements, is one of the country’s oldest colonial-era edifices. It now houses the Museo Regional Cuauhnahuac, named after the original appellation for the city, which means “place of trees”.
I took my time at the museum with the detailed displays on the indigenous Tlahuica, who arrived in the Morelos Valley around 1200 and were conquered first by the Aztecs, who were conquered by the Spanish. I began in a room dedicated to fossils found throughout the area, then viewed stone carvings and funeral regalia from the colonial era, as well as an exhibition conveying the breadth of the European occupation. Another one focused on the Franciscan friars who would build Cuernavaca’s cathedral, and how the sugar trade enriched the region.
On the second floor, I found Diego Rivera’s immense 1930 mural, which depicts in sweeping fashion the history of Morelos, the Spanish conquest and the Mexican Revolution, which grew out of a 1910 peasant uprising in the state.
As the sun was nearly setting, I visited the 16th-century Catedral de la Asuncion de Maria. Unlike other such churches of the era, it is not planted at the city’s main plaza; instead, the cathedral is in an enclosed compound a few blocks away. Before entering, I admired the elaborate pink and white portico, reminiscent of a wedding cake. In the cathedral, I appeared to be alone. As I walked through the nave, I searched for, and eventually found, frescoes I’d read about that were uncovered during renovation work in 1957: a barely visible, 17th-century panorama depicting the 1597 martyrdom of San Felipe de Jesus in Nagasaki, Japan.
My last stop before heading back to Mexico City the following afternoon was the Museo Robert Brady inside Casa de la Torre, the former home of an American artist, collector and expatriate who settled in Cuernavaca in 1962. Originally part of the monastery adjacent to the cathedral, it now showcases the bon vivant’s excellent collection, which includes more than 1,300 pieces of native and colonial art, antiques and furniture, as well as works by Frida Kahlo and Miguel Covarrubias.
The stunning collection in a mansion proved a natural denouement to my stay in Cuernavaca, which had been inspired by my curiosity about a bygone era of exotic and gilded glamour. In Brady’s gorgeous villa, I put aside thoughts of the drug violence, border conflicts and trade disputes of today, and revelled, however briefly, in Cuernavaca’s eternal spring.