Discover / Mexico
Mexico City, Neighbourhood by Neighbourhood
Mexico City · 9 min read
Mexico City is enormous and completely manageable if you stop thinking of it as one city. It is a collection of colonias, each with its own character, and a week here is best spent covering four or five of them properly.
Altitude is real. Take the first day slowly and drink more water than feels necessary.
Centro Historico
Built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the centre is dense, loud and full of things worth seeing: the Templo Mayor excavation, the Zocalo, Diego Rivera's murals in the Palacio Nacional and the sinking cathedral above it all.
Go on a weekday morning, eat at a cantina that has been there for a century, and get out before the traffic sets in.
Roma, Condesa and Juarez
These are the walking neighbourhoods: early twentieth century architecture, jacaranda trees, art deco apartment blocks and the highest density of good restaurants and coffee anywhere in the country.
Base yourself here. It is safe, green and central enough to reach everything by short taxi.
Coyoacan, Xochimilco and the museums
South of the centre, Coyoacan keeps a village feel and holds the Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo's house. Book online, weeks ahead.
The Museo Nacional de Antropologia is one of the best museums in the world and needs half a day. Xochimilco's canals are a Sunday activity, ideally with a group and a picnic rather than a tour.
Eating
Street food is the point: tacos al pastor carved off the trompo, quesadillas from a comal, tamales in the morning. Choose stalls with queues and high turnover.
At the other end, the city's tasting menu restaurants are genuinely world class and cost a fraction of their equivalents in Europe. Book both, in the same week.
Why it rewards curiosity
No other city gives you this much history, art and food for the money, and it is culturally deep enough that a week only scratches it.
Come with an appetite and no fixed plan for the afternoons.
