One day in Mexico CityFrom the main square to the legends
Start early, while the square is still cool, with “From the Zócalo to the Alameda”: the Zócalo, Iturbide Palace, Torre Latinoamericana and Bellas Artes, ending at the Juárez Hemicycle. For lunch, head back north to the Hostería de Santo Domingo (chiles en nogada), right where the afternoon begins with “From Tenochtitlan to the Capital of New Spain”: Templo Mayor, the National Palace and the Cathedral. When the light drops, “Legends of Colonial Mexico” leaves from the House of Tiles and passes the Inquisition. Have suadero tacos for dinner.
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Morning
From the Zócalo to the Alameda: Mexico City Highlights
- Zócalo (Plaza de la Constitución)The square named after a pedestal with no statue, and still Mexico's great living room.
- Iturbide PalaceA baroque wedding present from whose balcony the first emperor of independent Mexico was acclaimed.
- Torre LatinoamericanaThe 1956 skyscraper that floats on a lake and came through three major earthquakes unscathed.
- Postal PalaceA post office that looks like a Venetian palace, with bronze staircases cast in Florence.
- Palace of Fine Arts (Bellas Artes)Begun Art Nouveau, finished Art Deco, thirty years in the making: Mexico's great cultural stage.
- Alameda Central and the Juárez HemicycleThe oldest public park in the Americas, with a past of bonfires and a white marble tribute to Juárez.
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Lunch
Try Chiles en nogada at Hostería de Santo Domingo. Belisario Domínguez 72, Centro Histórico
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Afternoon
From Tenochtitlan to the Capital of New Spain
- Plaza de Santo DomingoThe square where faith, taxes and censorship lived side by side, and where scribes still prepare paperwork under the arches.
- Antiguo Colegio de San IldefonsoA 16th-century Jesuit college where, in 1922, painters swapped the easel for the scaffold.
- Templo MayorThe great temple of Tenochtitlan, dismantled in 1521 and rediscovered in 1978 by electricity workers.
- National PalaceFrom Moctezuma's palace to the viceroys' and the presidents': five hundred years of power on the same block.
- Metropolitan CathedralAlmost three centuries in the making: a façade you read from bottom to top, from Renaissance to Neoclassical.
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Early evening
Legends of Colonial Mexico: Tiles, Witches and Hidden Bones
- House of Tiles (Casa de los Azulejos)A palace clad in ceramic, a son who wanted to prove his father wrong and a real murder on the staircase.
- Palace of the InquisitionThe seat of the Holy Office, with its diagonal doorway, and the prisoner who, legend says, escaped on a ship she drew.
- Metropolitan CathedralA church sinking into a lake and a dark Christ that, tradition says, absorbed a poison.
- Calle de Don Juan Manuel"What time is it?" "Eleven." "Lucky you, to know the hour of your death": colonial Mexico's darkest legend.
- Hospital and Church of Jesús NazarenoThe hospital Cortés founded holds his bones, hidden in 1823 and found again in 1946.
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Dinner
Try Suadero and al pastor tacos at Taquería Los Cocuyos. Bolívar 56, Centro Histórico