Often the setting for banquets and receptions, this 400-year-old once-colonial country hacienda, is now decidedly urban, making the spacious rooms and pretty gardens all the more appealing. Excellent Mexican and Spanish dishes are served in numerous di

Next to the Estudio Diego Rivera, the San Ángel Inn is housed in an ex-hacienda complete with lovely flowery courtyard, fountain and gardens. It serves delicious traditional Mexican and European cuisine, but even if you don't splurge for dinner, b

In the wholesale-paper district, this lunchtime-only comedor brings a touch of class to Mexican standards without putting on airs. Standouts include red snapper tamales, nopales in chile guajillo sauce (cactus paddles in a sweet, mild chi

Beer lovers from punks to suits make a beeline for this boisterous, no-frills bar that's been hoisting up the cold ones since 1928. Amiable staff serve up tarros (mugs) of light or dark cerveza de barril (draft beer) and bottles of almost

The country's first cantina proudly displays its license (No 1), dating from 1855. Inside the building that once housed the hemisphere's first university, it's within shouting distance of the Palacio Nacional. Since then, every Mexican president

Tucked away on a quiet backstreet, this casual hangout is the closest you can get to riding the metro at rush hour, with a college crowd jamming three narrow rooms. Purchase beer tickets, then make your way over to the cactus-trimmed bar. The soundtrac

Chapultepec, which means Hill of Grasshoppers in the Aztec language (Náhuatl), once served as a refuge for the wandering Aztecs before eventually becoming a summer residence for Aztec nobles. In the 15th century, Nezahualcóyotl, ruler of near

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. Still home to Mexico's high and mighty, it contains the current presidential

Centro Histórico (Historic Centre) brims with fine colonial buildings and historic sites. Its nerve centre and the heart of Mexico City is Zócalo, the Plaza de la Constitución, which is home to the powers-that-be.

On its east side is the Palacio Nacional, built on the site of an Aztec palace. It now holds the offices of the president, a museum and historical murals by Diego Rivera. To the north of the plaza is the Catedral Metropolitana (built by the Spanish in

The Plaza de las Tres Culturas is so named because it symbolises the fusion of pre-Hispanic and Spanish roots into the Mexican mestizo identity. It displays the architectural legacy of those three cultural strands: the Aztec pyramids of Tlatelol

The Plaza of Three Cultures is a calm oasis in the city, but is haunted by the echoes of its sombre history. Founded by Aztecs in the 14th century, Tlatelolco was a separate dynasty from Tenochtitlán, on a separate island in Lago de Texcoco. Cort&

In December 1531, so the story goes, an indigenous Christian convert named Juan Diego had a vision of the Virgin Mary as he stood on Cerro del Tepeyac (Tepeyac hill), site of an old Aztec shrine. The local bishop was eventually convinced when the lady'

By the 1970s the old yellow-domed basilica, built around 1700, was swamped by worshippers and was sinking slowly into the soft subsoil. So the new Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe was built next door. Designed by Pedro Ramírez V&#

The National Palace is home to the offices of the president of Mexico, the Federal Treasury and dramatic murals by Diego Rivera. Above the central entrance hangs the 'Campana de Dolores', the bell rung in the town of Dolores Hidalgo by Padre Miguel Hid

The Diego Rivera murals along the main staircase, painted between 1929 and 1935, depict Mexican civilisation from the arrival of Quetzalcóatl (the Aztec plumed serpent god) up to the post-revolutionary period. The nine murals covering the north an