Attractions

The diversity of Mexico City's attractions springs from its complex history. From simple bustling mercados to museums filled with treasures of artistic and historic significance, Mexico City has layers and layers of cultural richness to explore.

Mexico City was built on the ruins of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan. A downtown portion of the city, comprising almost 700 blocks and 1,500 buildings, is designated the Centro Histórico (Historic Center). The area has surged in popularity, and once-neglected buildings are being converted into fashionable shops and restaurants, recalling its former colonial charm.

Remember that this is a major Latin city; dress is more professional and formal here than in other parts of the country. The altitude keeps the temperature mild, which is often a surprise for travelers with preconceptions of Mexico as perpetually hot. In summer, always be prepared for rain, which falls for an hour or two almost daily. In winter, carry a jacket or sweater -- stone museums are chilly inside, and when the sun goes down, the outside air gets quite cold. If you want to blend in with the crowd, black is always the new black, especially in the winter.

Dia de las Bicis -- The traffic-congested streets of Mexico City can be daunting for drivers, let alone travelers who wish to reach their destination on two wheels. However, every Sunday bicycles rule. As part of a program called Muévete en Bici (Get Moving on a Bike), the city shuts down the middle lanes of Reforma -- from near the entrance of Chapultepec Park to the zócalo, although the route can change depending on construction or special events -- one of the city's most prominent avenues, so that up to 10,000 cyclists, and their friends the runners, walkers, and even the odd stilt walker, can have free reign of the pavement. The best part is that the route passes by some of the city's most famous monuments and museums, many of which are free to the public on Sundays. The streets are cleared for bicyclists from 8am to 2pm.

If you'd like to take part, you have a couple of options: If you're staying in Roma or Condesa, head over to Mejor en Bici (tel. 55/5256-4049; www.mejorenbici.org) in Parque Mexico. They'll ask you for your official identification, such as a driver's license or passport, and a deposit of 200 pesos, which will be returned when you bring back your cruiser bike before 5:30pm, so you don't have to pay anything. You can then take a scenic ride through the Condesa neighborhood. If you don't have a lot of experience biking in large cities, you're probably better off going to one of the rental places along the bike route on Reforma. They usually have a 3-hour time limit, which makes it more difficult to stop off at museums and landmarks, which include the Angel de la Reforma, Palacio Bellas Artes, Palacio Nacional, and Catedral Metropolitana.

Mighty Tenochtitlan

What 16th-century metropolis was home to approximately 200,000 inhabitants, had intricate botanical and zoological gardens filled with thousands of exotic species, and had markets where as many as 40,000 people went to trade a menagerie of goods on a regular basis? London? Nope -- there were only 50,000 people living there in 1500. Barcelona? No, sir; the Spaniards had not yet conceived of the concept of botanical gardens. How about Constantinople? Nope. The European soldiers who helped conquer this city said its markets outshone even the Turkish souks.

The city in question was called Tenochtitlan, the capital of the mighty Aztec empire. We know the area today as Mexico City.

When the Spanish arrived, they must have felt as though they had landed on another planet; the Aztecs had constructed an entire metropolis on the boggy marshes of lake Texcoco. The city was intersected by a series of causeways, one of which was 8km (5 miles) long and wide enough for eight horsemen abreast to pass through. Up to 50,000 canoes plied through these causeways and corresponding canals, transporting everything from corn to brightly colored fabrics and obsidian blades. The famous Spanish chronicler Bernal Díaz wrote that "with such wonderful sites to gaze on we did not know what to say, or if this was real that we saw before our eyes," in his personal account of the siege of Tenochtitlan in True Story of the Conquest of New Spain.

Unfortunately, the Spaniards hadn't traveled thousands of miles just to send home pretty postcards -- after repeated attacks, famine, and a smallpox epidemic, Tenochtitlan fell on August 13, 1521, and Cuautéhmoc, the last Aztec emperor, was taken prisoner.

If you'd like to get a better feel for Tenochtitlan, the Museo de la Ciudad de México has a fine collection of maps and pictographic representations of the time period, and a few farmers still grow their produce using ancient floating garden methods in Xochimilco.