"Eggs, no fruit, no juice and coffee with cream"? said the waiter…..
"No, just coffee" I said.
"You sure Miss Pam, are you sick"?
Such was my minders concern this morning…. the hotel staff are rather protective …..!!!

"Pam Holland, your car has arrived"
and with that I was whisked out of the door with a flourish.

Kathy had arrived to take me out for the day. What adventures would it bring?

Our breakfast was a sumptuous  Mexican buffet accompanied by very pleasant live music.
Next stop, San Angel… I've been working here all week, but the Saturday market is famous for quality art work, handicrafts and pottery.

San Angel is one of those places that will stay in your mind for long time.  This setting is as close as you are likely to get to the colonial neighborhoods of Old México.  

Shaded plazas, narrow winding streets paved in cobblestone and walls of ancient stone covered with multi-colored bougainvillea all seem to etch a spot in your heart.

This is a community of brightly painted colonial era homes, mansions and haciendas that seem to block out the city sprawl that has now invaded most of the area. 
We wandered through the brightly colored stalls, vendors serious about their art are willing to spend time explaining their techniques.

I touched beautiful cut glass. Watch tortillas being made,

photographed bright green guacamole and piquant salad. A bright yellow canary in a red cage, ventured out to pick out a small piece of folded paper which told my fortune.

The cobblestone street leads into the Bishops House and a 15th century church surrounded by kept gardens. The Virgin Mary towers high above the single pink rose. There is a service in process and as we peek inside the church, the scent of incense combined with the chanting, and ambient light gives you a feeling of peace.

We spent most of the day wandering past the stalls and slowly wending our way through expensive shops and boutiques. A brass band plays in the square surrounded by the paintings of artists of high standard.

I felt a little under dressed in my sneakers and casual clothes but I joined the tourists in attire…….. many of the local women had beautifully designed clothes, some combined embroidered huipilis with western clothes in an elegant manner….

Coffee here is wonderful and we sat in the street and drank huge latte's, strong and rich which lasted us for the rest of the day.

Mexico City is noted for it's museums and our next stop was the home of Diego Riveras Patron Dolores Olmedo Patiño, the combative Mexican art collector who turned her hacienda into a museum devoted to paintings by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo

Mrs. Olmedo amassed 137 works by Rivera and 25 by his wife, Kahlo, and for decades controlled the estates of these Mexican artists. Although Mrs. Olmedo eventually opened her collection to the public, she was denounced by her critics for delays in inaugurating the museum and for her reluctance for many years to give art experts and biographers ready access to the works and archives of Rivera and Kahlo.

But the diminutive Mrs. Olmedo, who once modeled for Diego Rivera, welcomed controversy as an opportunity to move from the margins of Mexican cultural history to center stage. Her stubbornness was vindicated when her Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño, on the southern outskirts of Mexico City, was judged an artistic success.

Mrs. Olmedo loved flaunting her independence. Once asked how she would like to be remembered, she replied: ''Just as I am — a woman who did whatever she felt like doing, and luckily succeeded at it.''

Her collection was bizarre to the extreme, and the ancient hairless dogs that look like living statues captured my imagination as did the plumage of the dozens of peacocks in the gardens

The day ended in a busy Japanese restaurant overlooking the street where we ate the most wonderful food…