Things to do

Worth planning your days around

These are the things that carry the trip, roughly in order.

Museo Nacional de Antropología

The single best thing in the city and one of the great museums anywhere, in Chapultepec park. The Aztec Sun Stone, the giant Olmec heads, and a full walk through Mexico’s civilisations. Give it a half day minimum, and do not skip it because you are “not a museum person.” This one converts people. Go on a weekday morning; Sundays are free for residents and packed.

Coyoacán and the Casa Azul

The neighbourhood south of the centre is cobbled and calm, built around two plazas and a good market. The Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo’s cobalt-blue house, is genuinely moving, but tickets are timed and sell out. Book online several days ahead or you will not get in. Allow a half day to pair the house with the plazas, churros, and the markets here.

Centro Histórico

A dense, walkable morning of real substance: the Zócalo, the excavated Templo Mayor beside the cathedral, the Diego Rivera murals inside the Palacio Nacional, and the marble Palacio de Bellas Artes. Climb or lunch at the Gran Hotel’s stained-glass ceiling nearby. Two to four hours depending on how many murals you stop for.

Chapultepec park and castle

Huge, green, and easy to pair with the Anthropology Museum since they sit side by side. The Castillo de Chapultepec has the city’s best history-plus-view combination. Allow two hours for the castle.

Worth doing, with a caveat

• Xochimilco trajineras. The painted boats poled through the canals are a genuinely fun group party on a weekend afternoon, with cold beer and floating food and mariachi boats pulling alongside. Solo or on a quiet weekday they can feel dead and are a slog to reach. Go with people or skip it. Two to three hours on the water.
• Lucha libre at Arena México. Masked wrestling, cheesy and loud and a great night out. Buy tickets at the box office rather than the marked-up “tourist package,” and go on a Tuesday or Friday. See it as part of the nightlife.
• Museo Soumaya and Museo Jumex in Polanco. The mirrored Soumaya is worth a look for the building alone and it is free; the collection is uneven. Jumex next door does better contemporary shows.

Something locals do that visitors miss

Sunday morning on Paseo de la Reforma. The city closes the grand central avenue to cars until early afternoon and it fills with cyclists, runners, and families, all the way from the Angel of Independence toward the Centro. Rent a bike, ride the empty boulevard, and stop at Chapultepec. It is the city at its most relaxed and almost no first-time visitor plans for it.

Oversold, skip or downgrade

• Torre Latinoamericana observation deck. The view is fine, but you get a similar one for the price of a drink at a rooftop bar in the Centro or Juárez.
• Packaged “authentic” walking tours that shuttle you between the same three plazas you would find alone. Just walk the Centro yourself with a map.
• Overpriced full-day “combo” tours bundling Teotihuacán with a shrine and a tequila stop. Do the pyramids on your own instead; see the day trips page.

Teotihuacán and the pyramids are the region’s headline sight, but they are a day trip out of the city, not a thing inside it, so they live on the day trips page. And remember that eating here is a top attraction in its own right, not a break between sights.