Mexico City (Ciudad de México, CDMX — population 21 million in the metro area, the largest city in North America and the second-largest in the world) is built on the dried bed of Lake Texcoco, where the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán stood until Hernán Cortés destroyed it in 1521 and built the Spanish colonial city on top of it — which is why Mexico City sinks 10cm per year (the lakebed clay compresses) and why you can see Aztec ruins emerging from beneath Catholic churches. CDMX is simultaneously the cultural capital of Latin America (more museums than any other city in the world after London and Moscow), the food capital of the Americas (Mexican cuisine is UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage and Mexico City's tacos and tortas are as sophisticated as any cuisine on earth), and one of the most dynamic, infuriating, magical and complicated cities on the planet. A visitor who stays only in Polanco or the Centro Histórico has seen almost none of it.
The Zócalo (Plaza de la Constitución — 57,600 m², second only to Tiananmen Square in area) is the heart of Mexico City: the Metropolitan Cathedral (begun 1573, the largest cathedral in Latin America, still sinking into the Aztec lakebed — the tilted floor is visible), the National Palace (the presidential residence on the east side — Diego Rivera's famous mural of Mexican history from the Aztecs to the Revolution covers the entire grand staircase interior, admission free), and the Aztec sun stone replica. Sunrise here is extraordinary.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Templo Mayor (the principal temple of Tenochtitlán, discovered during electrical cable works in 1978 and excavated since — the ruins are directly adjacent to the Metropolitan Cathedral, revealing that Cortés literally built the Spanish city on top of the Aztec one) and its museum (8 exhibition halls of Aztec artefacts: the 3.5-tonne disc of Coyolxauhqui, goddess of the moon — the finest single Aztec sculpture ever found — and thousands of objects from the ritual deposits) is the essential history experience in Mexico.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTaco al pastor (pork marinated in dried chilli, vinegar, and achiote, stacked on a vertical spit (the trompo — the technique imported by Lebanese immigrants to Mexico in the 1930s, adapting shawarma to Mexican flavours and chillies), sliced onto a corn tortilla with pineapple, white onion and cilantro — Mexico City's defining street food) at El Huequito (Calle Ayuntamiento 21, Centro — operating since 1959, the most consistent al pastor in the city, the trompo runs all day).
The Palacio de Bellas Artes (1934, architect Adamo Boari — the finest Art Nouveau and Art Deco building in Latin America, the exterior in white Carrara marble so heavy it has sunk 4 metres since construction and can only be seen fully from the upper terraces) houses the finest mural paintings in Mexico on its interior walls: Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads (the Rockefeller Center version destroyed in 1934, Rivera repainted it here from memory), Rufino Tamayo and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideMole negro (the most complex sauce in Mexican cooking — 20+ dried chillies, chocolate, plantain, spices, charred tomato, sesame and pumpkin seeds ground for hours into a sauce as complex as a fine Burgundy wine, served over turkey or chicken) at a traditional comedor in the historic centre. With a mezcal (the smoky, artisanal agave spirit — joven, reposado or añejo from Oaxacan or Guerrero producers, the finest spirits being from small-batch wild agave).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTeotihuacán (50km northeast of Mexico City, 45 min by bus from Terminal Norte — or tour, ~€30 — the pre-Aztec "City of the Gods," built 100 BC–600 AD, the most visited archaeological site in Mexico and the third-most-visited in the world) contains the Pyramid of the Sun (65m high, the third-largest pyramid ever built, 350 steps to the top) and the Pyramid of the Moon, along the 2km Avenue of the Dead. Going at 7am means arriving at 8am opening and climbing before the 40°C midday heat.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLa Casa Azul (the Blue House — the cobalt-blue family home of Frida Kahlo in the Coyoacán neighbourhood, where she was born and died, now the most visited house museum in Latin America) contains her studio, her personal belongings, her wheelchair, her traditional Tehuana dresses, her jewellery and a small gallery of her work — though her finest paintings are elsewhere. Book in advance (timed entry, frequently sold out weeks ahead). The garden and the kitchen are as remarkable as the rooms.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideCoyoacán (the most atmospheric neighbourhood in Mexico City — colonial architecture intact, the Plaza Hidalgo and the Jardín del Centenario with their street food stalls, the Mercado de Coyoacán for tostadas de tinga, the Leon Trotsky Museum (where Trotsky was assassinated with an ice axe in 1940 by a Stalinist agent, the study preserved exactly as it was) and the Sunday artisan market) is the most pleasant afternoon in Mexico City.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideRoma Norte (the tree-lined neighbourhood of 1930s Art Deco apartment buildings north of Condesa) has the highest concentration of mezcal bars and independent restaurants in Mexico City: Bósforo (the legendary mezcal bar), Cantina Tío Pepe (since 1948, the most traditional cantina in Roma), and dozens of modern Mexican restaurants. Order a copita of artisanal joven mezcal (unaged, from Espadín or wild Tobalá agave) with orange slice and sal de gusano (worm salt).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Museo Nacional de Antropología (Chapultepec Park — opened 1964, architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, considered the finest museum building of the 20th century in Latin America) holds the largest collection of pre-Columbian artefacts in the world: the Aztec Sun Stone (the "Calendar Stone" — 3.6m in diameter, weighing 24 tonnes, the single most famous object from pre-Columbian America), the jade mask of Pakal from Palenque, the Toltec Atlantean warriors from Tula, the Olmec giant heads and the rooms dedicated to each of Mexico's major ancient civilizations.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideCastillo de Chapultepec (1785, the only royal castle in North America — built as a summer residence for the Viceroys, used by Emperor Maximilian I and his wife Carlota in the 1860s, served as the official presidential residence until 1939, now the National History Museum) crowns the volcanic rock of Chapultepec Hill with 360° views of Mexico City: the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl visible on clear days (50km south, both over 5,000m), the entire city spreading in every direction.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Mercado de Medellín (Colonia Roma — the most atmospheric traditional market in the Roma/Condesa area, with a Caribbean food section reflecting Mexico City's Cuban, Colombian and Venezuelan communities: arepas, Cuban sandwiches, fresh coconut water, and the extraordinary Mexican produce section with 40 varieties of dried chilli, 20 types of corn and seasonal tlacoyos and quesadillas cooked to order on the comal).
The CDMX taco crawl: tacos de canasta (basket tacos — potato, bean, chicharrón, transported in an oil-coated basket that steams them, MXN 8 each), tacos de suadero (slow-cooked beef brisket simmered in fat, the most México City of all tacos), tacos de barbacoa (slow-cooked lamb or goat wrapped in maguey leaves for 12+ hours, traditionally Sunday morning only) and, to finish, a tamale from a cart with atole (warm corn-masa drink with chocolate or vanilla). Four tacos and an atole: under MXN 100.
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