The bronze railings on this elegant staircase were cast in Florence and transported to Mexico City, as the post office is housed in an early 20th Century Italianate Palace designed by Adamo Boari, the original architect of Palacio Bellas Artes across the street... 
As well as fine staircases this graciously elegant interior boasts monumental marble columns and beautiful wrought iron filigree...
Here are the taquillas (windows) where you can buy your stamps.......
And the elevator that will take you to the first floor where the Postal Museum is located with one of the items on display being the very first stamp issued here in Mexico...
And this is a very well-visited and well-used post office even if the counters are set a little too impractically high for some of its customers....
Which brings me to my final point... I love blogging, texting and emailing, but I also still own an ink fountain pen and still write long, rambling letters to friends and send numerous postcards from various locations as well as handmade cards. In fact I still am on a bit of a "Campaign for Real Mail", and so was very amused to read recently in the Taca inflight airline magazine an article in which postcard sending was described as an "old-fashioned activity only done in olden times which now had a vintage appeal" How many other dinosaurs like me are still out there amongst my fellow technobloggers?? I am very interested to find out...........
Palacio Postal is situated at Tacuba 1 in the Centro Historico District of Mexico City.
12 comments:
I have to confess to having sent only one set of postcards in the eight months I've been abroad. I blame the fact that the local post offices here can't cope with sending mail abroad.
I love this post office. What a grand place! Thanks for sharing.
I use to collect postcards, write letters, send cards--I was a regular at the post office. I even had pen pals from all over the world when I was a teenager. I don't know what happened. I still like collecting postcards and stationary (japanese papers, silk papers, etc.)...but sadly, I barely write anymore. I should. I'm in Marrakech now, so maybe I'll write a few postcards tomorrow!
i don't write often, but I still send "real" cards and hand-write my holiday letters.
Amazing post office. It would be worth sending "snail mail" just to get to go buy stamps!
Hi Catherine, thanks for dropping by the Magic Lantern Show today... I do really love cemetery art, among many other themes, and for years have thought I'd love to get back to Mexico and look around some more... Grahame Greene did an excellent book about a trip to Mexico called The Lawless Roads... and I've seen photos of the Day of the Dead celebrations... hopefully someday. Maybe you have some shots you could post? I'll stop back when I have a minute and look through more of your past posts...
Very beautiful building. Nice architecture.
Hi Catherine, thank you very much for visiting my blog! I actually tend to agree with you - I am much more of a 'present' person these days too ( I'm 47) but I couldn't resist that post! I used to terrible for living in the past, my life's a lot less complex living the here and now, ha ha!
I agree totally about real pens and writing letters - I have a bit of a battle with having this pc, but I couldn't do this without it! Another pet hate is the mobile phone - ugh!
Lovely blog! I'll be back!
This post office is spectacular. I remember coming here to buy stamps two Christmases ago. And, yes, I always send postcards when I travel. I don't care how long they take to reach their final destination, it's just part of the ritual. The Italian post office has gotten much better in the past few years, so now Mexico holds the record for arduous postcard journeys.
What a lovely place to buy stamps. I would be a regular goer. :)
My sis and me still exchange cards for Bdays and WAs. :) I hope to continue.
Thanks for dropping a lovely comment at mine.
Thanks for all your appreciative comments this week...
Owen... I do have some old posts on Day of the Dead under festivals... but I haven't yet posted some of the cemetery night shots which really show the amazing graveside vigils... will try to get round to it!!
Beautiful post. So, they also call them 'taquillas' like we do in Cuba. It always makes glad when I find equivalents between Mexican Spanish and our Cuban norm. When I speak to the Mexicans I know here in GB sometimes I have to double up as a translator, too.
Greetings from London.
What a wonderful post office Catherine.
I am one of the few letter writers and postcard senders left around! I also love to make my own funky postcards. I have been copying some of my blog postings and sending them to my parents who are too old to manage with blogging. It feels good to be able to include them in my story telling.
I look forward to reading more about your life here.
Happy Days
Post a Comment