MEXICO CITY · MEXICO
Pyramids, paint colours, and the city in between.
Teotihuacan at dawn. Frida’s cobalt walls in Coyoacán. Trajineras on the Aztec canals at Xochimilco. Mezcal in Roma, mole in Polanco, lucha libre on a Friday night.
Three sides of one city
Mexico City is three cities stacked.
Pre-Hispanic, colonial, modern. Each one is still here. Each one is its own kind of day.
Pre-Hispanic
Before the Spanish came.
Teotihuacan’s pyramids rising out of the valley, the Aztec sun stone in the Anthropology Museum, Templo Mayor under the Zócalo. The city that was here for a thousand years before the conquest.
Explore Pre-Hispanic Mexico →Colonial New Spain
Three hundred years of New Spain.
The Cathedral on the Zócalo, Coyoacán’s cobbled plazas where Cortés set up shop, the Basílica de Guadalupe, the tile-fronted churches of Puebla. The Spanish century that shaped what the city looks like today.
Explore Colonial Mexico →Modern Mexico
Mexico, after independence.
Frida Kahlo’s cobalt-blue house in Coyoacán, lucha libre at Arena México, mezcal bars in Roma, mole in Polanco, hot air balloons at dawn. The city that came after the conquest, and is still being built.
Explore Modern Mexico →The pyramid day
If you only do one day out of the city.
Teotihuacan’s pyramids are the trip every visitor takes. An hour out, the Pyramid of the Sun and the Avenue of the Dead. Some go up by hot air balloon at sunrise. Some pair it with the Basílica de Guadalupe on the way back.
The classics
Mexico City’s Most Popular Tours
Teotihuacan, Xochimilco, Coyoacán, hot air balloons at dawn, the Basílica, mezcal tasting. The tours every visitor seems to book.
Inside the city
Pick a neighbourhood.
Each colonia is its own day. Coyoacán for Frida and cobbled streets. Xochimilco for the trajineras. Chapultepec for the park and the castle. The historic centre for the Zócalo and the Templo Mayor.
By tour type
Or pick how you want to spend the day.
Walking the historic centre if you want the city on foot. Hot-air balloon if you want the pyramids from the air. Mezcal & tequila if you want it after dark. Cooking class, lucha libre, hop-on hop-off, and the rest.
Where the gods walked
The Teotihuacan day, three ways.
The Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of the Moon, the Avenue of the Dead. Forty miles northeast of the city, the ruins of a 100,000-person metropolis that pre-dates the Aztecs by a thousand years. Three ways we’d take the trip.
After dark in Roma
The mezcal trail.
Mexico City drinks differently after sundown. Mezcal from Oaxaca, tequila from Jalisco, pulque from the agave fields right outside the city. Three tastings that go beyond the «sip the lime» cliche.
On the water
The trajinera day.
Xochimilco’s canals are what’s left of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, which sat on a lake. Today you book a brightly-painted wooden trajinera, bring mezcal and a speaker, and float for a couple of hours. Three boats we’d pick from.
Out of the city
Beyond the capital.
Mexico City sits at the centre of half the country’s best day trips. Pyramids one hour east, turquoise pools three hours north, the colonial city of Puebla two hours over, Oaxaca’s mezcal country a short flight south. Pick a direction.
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