Today, in honor of Mexico’s Independence Day, our Mexico City by Metro series takes us to the Zocalo stop, which leaves you smack dab in the heart of Mexico City’s largest and most important plaza.

It’s a place where patriotism manifests itself in all its forms: pledges to the flag and protests against injustice. Here are a few of our favorite images from our visits to the Zocalo over the past week:

Installment 2 in our occasional series, Mexico City by Metro.

This week, we surfaced at the Bellas Artes Metro stop. Bellas Artes, as its name promises, leaves you gape-jawed at the unexpected beauty of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Museum of Fine Arts).

It also leaves you gape-jawed and with an itchy photog finger in the park alongside the museum…

One of the exits for the Bellas Artes Metro. The building in the background is NOT the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Standing in the entryway of the Palacio de Bellas Artes to wait out a rain shower, I looked up and noticed this banner on the side of the Torre Latino (the skyscraper that looks quite a bit like the Empire State Building). It says “We demand security,” and it was placed on the building for last weekend’s peace march. With the Mexican flag and the statue finishing the composition, how could I not capture this photo?

And speaking of security… this Bellas Artes guard looks like he might be slacking on the job a little too much. Caught him in this photo before he asked Francisco to turn off the video camera.

Independence Day is coming up and the flags are out in force. This one, mounted on the motorcycle, was attractive enough as a photographic subject, but with the interesting couple in the background, I quickly overcame my usual reticence to take photos of people. Snap!

Leopardo, the young boy in this photo, is an expert pine needle basket weaver. We struck up a conversation and he told me that he learned the art from his father. His whole family weaves baskets. They’re from Michoacan. And in case you’re wondering, I ended up with a basket in addition to this photo.

Aura cleansing is a popular activity in touristy areas here, and the Bellas Artes stop is no exception.

If my count is accurate, Mexico City’s Metro has 146 stations.

We thought it might be fun to visit all 146 stations and to introduce you to what’s around them in an occasional series called “Mexico City by Metro.”

The first stop is Chapultepec, the station that is closest to Bosque de Chapultepec, the large urban park in the center of the city.

*

When you come above ground at Chapultepec, you’re surrounded by a swarm of mobile commerce. There’s the ice cream vendor with her tower of multi-colored cones and the tortilla vendor, among 100 or so others…

The Chapultepec station leaves you right on the edge of Chapultepec Park (Bosque de Chapultepec), a massive urban green space and home to the city’s National History Museum, zoo, and a number of other great places to spend an afternoon.

I saw this man feeding his child as I was wandering around the National History Museum. Don’t you love these sublime, unscripted moments?

…and I got a handful of shots of this couple, who are clearly very much in love with one another.

Photos: Julie Schwietert Collazo