Metro Misterios

Metro Misterios is named for the important avenue which used to be the most prominent street running to the Basilica de Guadalupe to the north. The Calzada de los Misterios is, in fact, an ancient causeway and one which connected the island city of Tenochtitlan with the mainland directly north. Specifically, it went to the ancient town of Tepeyacac at the foot of Tepeyac Hill.

The twin street, the Calzada de Guadalupe, opened only in 1786. It runs parallel to the original. Today, the two function as the extensions of the Paseo de la Reforma. That major throughway connected here only in 1964. As pictured, Line 7 of the Metrobús also continues here on both calzadas, running north and south.

• The Calzada de los Misterios is lined with “hermitages.” These appear to the modern eye more like monuments but they used to serve as points of meditation or prayer for those arriving to the Basilica to the north. The traditional Roman Catholic rosary includes 15 such Mysteries in three groups of five: the Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries, and the Glorious Mysteries.
• The hermitage monuments (one is pictured above) were designed and built between 1673 and 1675 by architect Cristóbal de Medina Vargas. In the Baroque style, each is four meters wide by 1.50 deep and eight meters high. The station logo depicts a composite of one of the monuments.
• Eight of the original 17th-century monuments stand. The remaining seven were reconstructed in 1999.
• The Calzada traditionally begins at the Glorieta Peralvillo. Closer to the old Peralvillo Garrison, today’s Museo Indigena, it’s a good 15-minutes walk south and east. The Calzada de Misterios itself is only a 5-minute walk along either side of the Circuito Interior. The Misterios hermitages are both north and south of the highway and on both sides of the calzada.

The Metro Misterios station is one of six on Line 5 of the Metro which run concurrently with the important Circuit Interior highway. This line defines much of the border between the Venustiano Carranza and Gustavo A. Madero alcaldías. But here, we’ve arrived in Cuauhtémoc, just east of the La Raza area.