Things to Do in Mexico City: Aztec Temples, Murals, Parks and Canals

Mexico City rewards visitors who trace its three overlapping historical eras, pre-Hispanic Mexica, Spanish vice-regal, and modern post-revolutionary, within each district rather than zig-zagging across the basin in traffic. Most major cultural landmarks are administered either by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) or the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL); check official museum sites before visiting, as state museums close on Mondays.

1. Stand Over Tenochtitlan at the Templo Mayor and Zócalo

Anchor your first morning in the Zócalo and Centro Histórico, where the vast Plaza de la Constitución sits directly above the ceremonial heart of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Just north-east of the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, the Templo Mayor archaeological zone exposes seven successive construction stages of the Huey Teocalli (Great Temple), dedicated simultaneously to Huitzilopochtli (god of war and the sun) and Tlaloc (god of rain and agriculture). Uncovered in 1978 when utility workers struck the 3.25-metre carved stone disc of the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui, the site's eight-hall museum displays the monolith alongside Mixtec, Olmec, and Mexica offerings.

2. Read Post-Revolutionary Muralism in Public Palaces

Between the 1920s and 1950s, Mexican muralists transformed colonial and early twentieth-century civic interiors into public visual histories:

• Palacio Nacional: Along the grand stairwell and first-floor arcades overlooking the Zócalo, Diego Rivera painted The History of Mexico between 1929 and 1935, tracing pre-Hispanic civilisation through the Reforma and the 1910 Revolution.
• Palacio de Bellas Artes: At the eastern edge of Alameda Central, this white Carrara-marble palace (begun in 1904 under Italian architect Adamo Boari and completed in 1934 by Federico Mariscal in Art Deco style) displays murals by Rivera (including Man, Controller of the Universe), José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo, as well as a stage curtain made from nearly one million iridescent Tiffany glass pieces depicting the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl.
• UNAM Central Library: In the south of the city, Juan O'Gorman's ten-storey library tower (completed in 1956) is wrapped across 4,000 square metres of naturally coloured stones from across Mexico.

3. Spend a Half-Day in Chapultepec Park and the Anthropology Museum

Covering 686 hectares across three sections, Bosque de Chapultepec is the capital's principal woodland and museum corridor. Climb the paved ramp up Chapultepec Hill to the National Museum of History inside Chapultepec Castle, the nineteenth-century imperial residence of Emperor Maximilian I and Empress Carlota. Afterwards, walk across Paseo de la Reforma to Pedro Ramírez Vázquez's 1964 National Museum of Anthropology, where twenty-two exhibition halls surround the monumental concrete Paraguas (umbrella) courtyard fountain and house the twenty-four-tonne basalt Aztec Sun Stone (Piedra del Sol) and giant Olmec colossal heads.

4. Visit the Basilica of Guadalupe, Coyoacán and Xochimilco

In northern borough Gustavo A. Madero at the foot of Tepeyac Hill, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadalupe draws millions of pilgrims to see the sixteenth-century tilma (cloak) of Saint Juan Diego, displayed inside Pedro Ramírez Vázquez's circular modern basilica (consecrated in 1976) beside the leaning 1709 baroque Old Basilica. On the south side of the city, combine a morning walk through Coyoacán and the Frida Kahlo Museum with an afternoon punt aboard a painted wooden trajinera along the Xochimilco floating gardens, or dedicate a full day to climbing the Avenue of the Dead on a Teotihuacan pyramids day trip.