Introduction
Mexico City is the world's third-largest metropolis (only Tokyo and NYC are bigger). Mexico's best and worst ingredients are all here: music and noise, brown air and green parks, colonial palaces and skyscrapers, world-renowned museums and ever-spreading slums.
With its great museums, such as the sprawling Museo Nacional de Antropologia and its unsurpassed collection of artefacts from the great Mesoamerican civilisations, a cultural heritage informed by the past and accommodating wild spirits like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and the pulsating streetlife engendered by the sheer density of the population, the capital surprises visitors who often stick around longer than they'd planned.
The historic heart of the city, El Zócalo, and its surrounding neighbourhoods are known as the Centro Histórico (Historic Centre) and are full of notable old buildings and interesting museums.
The Wood of Chapultepec, known to gringos as Chapultepec Park, is to the west of the aforementioned districts. It's a big bunch of greenery and lakes, with museums and cultural tidbits to boot.
Population: 22 million
Country: Mexico
Time Zone: GMT/UTC -6
Telephone Area Code: 55
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Getting There & Around
Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez, 6km (4mi) east of the Zócalo, is Mexico City's only passenger airport. There are at least 25 airlines providing direct service from US and Canadian cities, and many others provide one-stop connecting services. Only a few flights from Europe fly to Mexico nonstop; US airlines require a plane change in the USA.
Buses go to and from various destinations all over Mexico. Trains, which have been on the decline for decades, aren't quite as readily available.
Mexico City has an inexpensive, easy-to-use metro and an equally cheap and practical bus system plying all the main routes. Taxis are plentiful, but some are potentially hazardous.
Rental car is another option to get around.
Attractions
The Bosque de Chapultepec has remained Mexico City's largest park to this day. It now covers more than 4 sq km (1.5 sq mi) and has lakes, a zoo and several excellent museums such as The Museo Nacional de Antropologia (National Anthropology Museum).
Centro Historico (Historic Center), brims with fine colonial buildings and historic sites. Its nerve centre and the heart of Mexico City is Zocalo, the Plaza de la Constitucion. On its east side is the Palacio Nacional which holds the offices of the president, a museum and murals by Diego Rivera.
San Angel is one of the city's most charming suburbs, with many quiet cobbled streets lined by both old colonial houses and expensive modern ones, and hosting a variety of things to see and do.
About 10km (6mi) south of downtown, Coyoacan was Cortes' base after the fall of Tenochtitlan.
It still has its own identity, with narrow colonial-era streets, plazas, cafes and a lively atmosphere.
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