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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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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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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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Casa Chata
The 18th-century building houses a social-anthropology research center, with a library and bookstore off the patio.
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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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Iglesia Del Convento De San Francisco
The temple is just a remnant of the vast Franciscan monastery erected in the early 16th century over the site of Moctezuma's private zoo. In its heyday it extended two blocks south and east, and its atrium could hold 60,000 worshippers. The monastic complex was divvied up under the post-Independence Reform Laws, then returned to the Franciscan order, in a deplorable state, in 1949, and subsequently restored.
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Iglesia Y Panteón De San Fernando
At the top of the garden-lined Plaza de San Fernando stands the handsome 18th-century church of the same saint, with baroque carved doors and an impressive altar. Next door is the Panteón de San Fernando, a cemetery containing the tombs of illustrious 19th-century Mexicans such as Benito Juárez, Vicente Guerrero, Ignacio Zaragoza and Melchor Ocampo.
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Parroquia De San Agustín De Las Cuevas
Dating from the 1600s, the church features an oddly modernist contemporary altar, no doubt owing to Barragán's influence. Exit through the woodsy atrium which fronts the church.
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Parroquia De San Bernardino De Siena
East of Jardín Juárez stands the 16th-century Parroquia de San Bernardino de Siena, with an elaborate gold-painted retablo (altarpiece) and a large tree-studded atrium.
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Parroquia De San Juan Bautista
This single-nave church and its adjacent former monastery dominate the east side of Plaza Hidalgo. First erected in 1592 by the Franciscan order, the Parroquia de San Juan Bautista has a lavishly ornamented interior, with painted scenes all over the vaulted ceiling. Be sure to inspect the cloister, featuring Tuscan columns and a checkerboard of carved relief panels on the corner ceilings.
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Sagrario Metropolitano
Adjoining the east side of the cathedral is the 18th-century Sagrario. Originally built to house the archives and vestments of the archbishop, it is now the city's main parish church. Its front entrance and mirror-image eastern portal are superb examples of the ultradecorative Churrigueresque style.
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Santa Cecilia Acatitlán
About 2km north of Tenayuca is a small but fine pyramid topped with a temple (both reconstructed) dedicated to the gods Tláloc and Huizilopochtli. It stands in pleasant, leafy grounds behind the pretty, 16th-century Parroquia Santa Cecilia, some of whose stone came from the original pyramid. Access to the pyramid is through the Museo Hurtado, with a small collection of pre-Hispanic sculpture.
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Santa Muerte Altar
Garbed in a sequined white gown, wearing a wig of dark tresses and clutching a scythe in her bony hand, the skeletal figure bears an eerie resemblance to Mrs Bates from the film Psycho . Santa Muerte (St Death), as she is known, is the object of a fast-growing cult in Mexico, particularly in the rough Barrio Tepito, where this principal altar stands on Alfarería north of Mineros. Possibly rooted in pre-Hispanic ritual, Santa Muerte has been linked to Mictlantecuhtli, the Mexican god of death.
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Templo De La Santísima
The profusion of ornamental sculpture on the façade - including ghostly busts of the 12 apostles and a representation of Christ with his head in God's lap - is the main reason to visit the Church of the Holy Sacrament, three blocks east of the Museo Nacional de las Culturas. Most of the carving was done by Lorenzo Rodríguez between 1755 and 1783.
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Templo De Nuestra Señora De Loreto
Noticeably sagging toward the east, this extraordinary church stands upon the site of an earlier chapel that housed a replica of Our Lady of Loreto brought from Italy by a Jesuit priest in 1675. The current church was completed in 1816 with the obligatory neoclassical facade of the period. It promptly started sinking into the ground but fortunately stopped a few years later.
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Templo Mayor
The Teocalli of Tenochtitlán, demolished by the Spaniards in the 1520s, stood on the site of the cathedral and the blocks to its north and east. It wasn't until 1978, after electricity workers happened on an eight-ton stone-disc carving of the Aztec goddess Coyolxauhqui, that the decision was taken to demolish a block of colonial buildings and excavate the Templo Mayor.
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Templo Y Museo De El Carmen
A storehouse of magnificent sacred art, this museum occupies a former school run by the Carmelite order, adjacent to their 17th-century Templo de El Carmen. (The village was named for their patron saint, San Ángelo Mártir.) The collection includes eight oils by Mexican master Cristóbal Villalpando; equally splendid are the polychrome and gilt designs on the ceilings. The big draw, however, are the dozen mummies in the crypt. Thought to be the bodies of 17th-century benefactors of the order, they were uncovered during the revolution by Zapatistas looking for buried treasure.
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Tenayuca
Settled by Chichimecs in about the 13th century, Tenayuca was later ruled by the Aztecs, and the double-staircase pyramid they left is a smaller version of the now-ruined one that stood in the Templo Mayor. As at the Templo Mayor, each staircase was topped by a temple - one dedicated to the water god Tláloc, the other probably dedicated to the Aztec tribal god Huizilopochtli.
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Tlatelolco - Plaza de las Tres Culturas
The Plaza de las Tres Culturas is so named because it symbolizes the fusion of pre-Hispanic and Spanish roots into the Mexican mestizo identity. It displays the architectural legacy of those three cultural strands: the Aztec pyramids of Tlatelolco, the 17th-century Spanish Templo de Santiago and the modern Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (Foreign Ministry).
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Virgen Del Metro
Housed in a small tiled shrine is this evidence of a recent miracle. Metro riders in June 1997 noticed that a water leak in Hidalgo station had formed a stain in the likeness of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Following the discovery, thousands flocked to witness the miraculous image. The stone section was removed and encased in glass at the Zarco entrance to metro Hidalgo.
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