Mexico City Sights

  1. Alameda Central

    Alameda Central is Mexico City's only sizable downtown park and is surrounded by some of the city's most interesting buildings and museums. Created in the late 1500s by then-Viceroy Luis de Velasco, the park took its name from the álamos (poplars) planted over its rectangular expanse. It's particularly popular on Sunday, when fam­ilies congregate.

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  2. Anahuacalli

    Designed by Diego Rivera to house his collection of pre-Hispanic art, this museum, 3.5km south of Coyoacán, is a fortresslike building made of dark volcanic stone. It incorporates stylistic features from many pre-Hispanic cultures. An inscription over the door reads: 'To return to the people the artistic inheritance I was able to redeem from their ancestors.' If the air is clear, the view over the city from the roof is great.

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  3. Antiguo Colegio De San Ildefonso

    Built in the 16th century as a Jesuit college, this remarkable building was later turned into a prestigious teacher-training institute. In the 1920s, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros and others were brought in to do murals. Most of the work on the main patio is by Orozco; check out the portrait of Cortés and La Malinche, his mistress, underneath the staircase.

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  4. Antiguo Palacio Del Ayuntamiento

    The two buildings on the south side of the Zócalo may look similar with their stately arcades and handsome carved window frames, but the Ayuntamiento (the one on the right) predates its twin by over 400 years. The mayor has his office there, while various city departments occupy the east building.

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  5. Antique Market

    Along Roma's main thoroughfare.

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  7. Arena Coliseo

    Violence, torture and extreme cruelty are on display in Mexico's capital three nights a week. Lucha libre, the Mexican version of pro wrestling, serves up this antisocial behavior as popular entertainment. Laden with myth, charged with aggression and chock-full of hilarious theatrics, it can be an amusing spectacle.

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  8. Arena De México

    Violence, torture and extreme cruelty are on display in Mexico's capital three nights a week. Lucha libre, the Mexican version of pro wrestling, serves up this antisocial behavior as popular entertainment. Laden with myth, charged with aggression and chock-full of hilarious theatrics, it can be an amusing spectacle.

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  9. Arróniz

    Despite its location on an elegant leafy square, this gallery has a raw urban energy, with its Soho-style space and basic concrete floors. This is the only gallery in the country specializing in limited-edition engravings and prints. Artists include new and emerging, as well as the established. There are generally a modest number of paintings and photography on show here, too. Exhibitions change every three months.

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  10. Basílica de Guadalupe

    In December 1531, so the story goes, an indigenous Christian convert named Juan Diego had a vision of the Virgin Mary as he stood on Cerro del Tepeyac (Tepeyac Hill), site of an old Aztec shrine. The local bishop was eventually convinced when the lady's image was miraculously emblazoned on his cloak and a shrine dedicated to the event soon sprang up.

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  11. Basílica De Nuestra Señora De Guadalupe

    In December 1531, as the story goes, an indigenous Christian convert named Juan Diego stood on Cerro del Tepeyac (Tepeyac Hill), site of an old Aztec shrine, and beheld a beautiful lady dressed in a blue mantle trimmed with gold. She sent him to tell the bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, that he had seen the Virgin Mary, and that she wanted a shrine built in her honor. But the bishop didn't believe him. Returning to the hill, Juan Diego had the vision several more times. After the lady's fourth appearance, her image was miraculously emblazoned on his cloak, causing the church to finally accept his story, and a cult developed around the site.

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  13. Biblioteca Central

    As you enter the northern part of the campus from Insurgentes, it's easy to spot the Central Library - 10 floors high, almost windowless and covered on every side with colorful, complicatedly symbolic mosaics by Juan O'Gorman. The south wall, with two prominent zodiac wheels, covers colonial times, while the north wall deals with Aztec culture.

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  14. Biblioteca De México

    The formidable compound now known as 'The Citadel' started off as a tobacco factory in the late 18th century. Later it was converted to an armory and a political prison, but it is best known as the scene of the Decena Trágica (Tragic Ten Days), the coup that brought down the Madero government in 1913. Today it is home to the National Library, with holdings of over 260,000 volumes and a good periodicals collection. The central halls are given over to art exhibits.

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  15. Bosque De Chapultepec

    The second section of the Bosque de Chapultepec lies west of the Periférico. In addition to family attractions, there is a pair of upscale lake-view restaurants on the Lago Mayor and the Lago Menor.

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  16. Bosque de Chapultepec

    Chapultepec, which means Hill of Grasshoppers in the Aztec language (Náhuatl), once served as a refuge for the wandering Aztecs before eventually becoming a summer residence for their noble class. In the 15th century, Nezahualcóyotl, ruler of nearby Texcoco, gave permission for the area to be made a forest reserve.

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  17. Canals

    Xochimilco (Náhuatl for 'Place where Flowers Grow') was an early target of Aztec hegemony, probably due to its inhabitants' farming skills. The Xochimilcas piled up vegetation and mud in the shallow waters of Lake Xochimilco, a southern offshoot of Lago de Texcoco, to make fertile gardens called chinampas, which later became an economic base of the Aztec empire. As the chinampas proliferated, much of the lake was transformed into a series of canals.

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  19. Capilla De Las Capuchinas Sacramentarias

    There's a sublime simplicity about this chapel of a convent for Capuchine nuns designed by modernist architect Luis Barragán in 1952. The austere altar, free of the usual iconography, consists only of a trio of gold panels. Visit in the morning to appreciate how light streams through the stained-glass window by Mathias Goeritz.

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  20. Casa Chata

    The 18th-century building houses a social-anthropology research center, with a library and bookstore off the patio.

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  21. Casa De Azulejos

    A block east toward the Zócalo stands one of the city's gems, the Casa de Azulejos. Dating from 1596, it was built for the Condes (Counts) del Valle de Orizaba. Although the superb tile work that has adorned the outside walls since the 18th century is Spanish and Moorish in style, most of the tiles were actually produced in China and shipped to Mexico on the Manila naos (Spanish galleons used up to the early 19th century).

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  22. Casa Del Poeta Ramón López Velarde

    Composer of the lyrical paean to the nation La Suave Pátria, the beloved poet Ramón López Velarde resided in this building until his death in 1921. From his humble studio, you go through an armoire to embark on a journey through López Velarde's imagination. Fragments of the poet's verses are scattered around surreal sculptures, toys and dioramas.

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  23. Casa Verde

    Art is, by definition, a creative expression and so should not necessarily be restricted to urban galleries and museums. And, in the case of the Casa Verde, the reverse is the case. Located on the outskirts of the city, this bold new gallery, founded in 2005, has integrated contemporary sculpture with the natural environment in an open-air gallery that covers a hectare of lushly unspoiled natural parkland and gardens. Dramatic contemporary sculptures punctuate their surroundings like so many exclamation marks; exhibited on a series of grassy terraces and, thus, open to the elements, rather than just the air-con-cum-cigarette smoke gallery norm.

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  25. Castillo De Chapultepec

    A visible reminder of Mexico's bygone aristocracy, the 'castle' that stands atop Chapultepec Hill was begun in 1785 but not completed until after independence, when it became the national military academy. When Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota arrived in 1864, they refurbished it as their residence. The castle became home to Mexico's presidents until 1939, when President Lázaro Cárdenas converted it into the Museo Nacional de Historia (National History Museum).

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  26. Catedral Metropolitana

    Construction of this cathedral began in 1573 and took two and a half centuries to complete. Because of its placement atop the ruins of an Aztec temple complex, the massive building has been sinking unevenly since its construction, resulting in fissures and cracks in the structure. While visitors may wander freely, they are asked not to do so during mass.

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  27. Centro Cultura De Casa Lamm

    This beautiful Art Deco building creates a perfect ambience for this private art college, which offers lectures and courses, as well as a video club, café, bookshop, library and excellent art gallery exhibiting the work of talented contemporary artists such as Cuban Eduardo Roca Salazar (Choco).

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  28. Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco

    Inaugurated in 2007, the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco occupies the former Foreign Relations Secretariat building (the agency has since moved to the Plaza Juárez complex on the Alameda Central). A component of the UNAM, the cultural center contains two interesting permanent exhibits. The Colección Andrés Blaisten, on the first floor, comprises the largest privately owned collection of Mexican 20th-century art.

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  29. Centro De La Imagen

    At the Balderas entrance to La Ciudadela is the city's photography museum. The innovatively curated space stages compelling exhibitions, often focusing on documentary views of Mexican life by some of the country's sharpest observers. Pick up a copy of Luna Córnea, the photography journal published by the center, at the excellent bookstore.

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