9 Best Sights in Greater Mexico City, Mexico City

Fútbol is the sport that Mexicans are most passionate about, which is evident in the size of their soccer stadium, Estadio Azteca, which holds 83,264 spectators and is the second largest in all of Latin America. Located in the south of the city, about 8 km (5 miles) beyond historic Coyoacán, it's the home turf of Club América, one of Mexico's top fútbol teams, as well as the Primera División's Cruz Azul, repeat winners of the CONCACAF Champions League. Additionally, Mexico's national team plays here often, and there's an American NFL football game held here once a year. The stadium will also be one of three in Mexico (and the only one in Mexico City) to host games during the FIFA World Cup in 2026. In preparation for this, the stadium will be undergoing significant renovations and improvements throughout 2024 and early 2025, although most games are still expected to take place throughout this period, with the exception of the annual NFL football game, which may not resume until after the World Cup. You can buy tickets at the stadium ticket windows on the same day of any minor game. For more important games, try to buy tickets a week in advance—it's easiest to do so via Ticketmaster.

You can't get to Azteca by Metro, but there is a light rail stop (Estadio Azteca) outside the stadium and it's a short walk to catch the light rail from the Tasqueña metro stop. Hour-long tours are also offered daily for MP150.

A riotously colorful and curious collection of some 45,000 toys, some dating back to the 19th century, fill this playful museum and ode to pop culture in the Doctores neighborhood. There's little rhyme or reason to the manner in which everything is arranged, other than, perhaps, the whimsical eye and sly sense of humor of the museum's founder, architect Roberto Shimizu Kinoshita. You'll find cases of Barbie dolls, model cars and planes, stuffed animals, dioramas, and tons of Lucha Libre and other elements of Mexican culture. The shop on the ground floor sells some very cool antique toys. The district is just a 15-minute walk east of Roma and although it is becoming safer and even an increasingly popular as a place to live, Doctores can be a bit dicey, especially at night or if you're walking alone. Consider taking an Uber.

A devoted collector of pre-Hispanic art, Diego Rivera built his own museum to house the more than 45,000 artifacts he collected over his lifetime—which, sadly, came to an end several years before this impressive volcanic-rock building with a design inspired by ancient Mexican pyramids was completed in 1964. The third-floor studio, with its massive wall of windows, displays sketches for some of Rivera's most celebrated murals. Be sure to make your way to the rooftop, which affords sweeping city and mountain views, especially if it's a clear day; look out for the museum's small adjacent nature reserve, which you can also walk through. During the weeks surrounding Día de Muertos, you can view a remarkable altar in honor of Rivera himself. Although located in the larger delegación of Coyoacán, the museum is in the neighborhood of San Pablo Tepetlapa, about a 15-minute Uber ride south of Coyoacán's historic center; it's also a short walk from the Nezahualpilli light rail station.

In Xochimilco, on the outskirts of the city, you'll find this superb collection of paintings by Frida Kahlo and the largest private collection of works by Diego Rivera. The museum was established by Dolores Olmedo, Rivera's lifelong model, patron, and onetime mistress. The lavish display of nearly 150 pieces from his cubist, postcubist, and mural periods hangs in a magnificent 17th-century hacienda with lovely gardens. Kahlo's paintings are in a separate, adjacent hall; the museum sometimes lends these for traveling exhibitions, so check ahead to ensure they're here if this is the main reason you're visiting. Concerts and entertainment for children are presented on many weekends, while gaggles of geese and strutting peacocks amble about the grounds, adding to the clamor. There is a lovely small café in a glassed-in gazebo, and a variety of compelling rotating exhibits are held in other buildings around the property. During the month of October, the museum presents one of the better Día de Muertos displays in the city. You can reach the museum by taking the metro to Tasqueña station, and then catching the light-rail to La Noria (not Xochimilco), which is a five- to seven-minute walk away. By car, it's about a 40- to 50-minute drive from El Centro, but many visitors combine a stop here with boating on the canals in Xochimilco or strolling around historic Tlalpan. Just note, however, that currently the museum has been closed since the pandemic; it's expected to reopen sometime in 2024, and visitors are advised to check the museum's Facebook page for updates. 

Although this gleaming, expansive contemporary art museum on the campus of UNAM—in the same cluster of buildings that make up the university's cultural center—has no permanent installation, the several gallery spaces, some intimate and some enormous, are staged with exceptional changing shows throughout the year. Additionally, parts of the university's extensive collection are shown at different times. MUAC is on par with any of the city's contemporary art museums, partly thanks to the gorgeous, angular design of noted architect Teodoro González de Leon, who also designed Reforma 222, Torre Manacar, and—in collaboration—Museo Rufino Tamayo (which bears a resemblance to MUAC). The glass facade rises at a sharp angle over a long reflecting pool, facing a broad courtyard that leads to the cultural center's performance venues. A long curving window in the back of the building looks out over the volcanic landscape on which the museum and the university are built, and a grand, freestanding staircase leads to a lower-level museum restaurant (the food is fine, if not spectacular, but the space is beautiful) and some additional galleries as well as a lecture hall. There are usually five or six shows taking place at any given time, and these rotate two or three times per year. Past shows have been devoted to works by Ai Weiwei, Zaha Hadid, Anish Kapoor, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, and Pola Weiss. The museum shop is also superb and carries a number of reasonably priced household items.

The air is rare in this stunning alpine preserve, which in 1917 was declared Mexico's first national park. The 4,600-acre oasis of mostly conifer forest (with significant stands of oak trees as well) ranges in elevation between 2,600 meters (8,530 feet) and 3,700 meters (12,140 feet), and when you're scampering along the trails and beside the babbling brooks that lace this verdant wonderland, it's hard to believe that you're still completely within Mexico City limits (albeit close to the border with Estado de México). If the name had you picturing a vast arid plain of savage wild cats, note that "Desierto" is a reference to the distance from civilization, and while "leones" reportedly does relate to the one-time prevalence of wild critters living in the area, there were never any true lions out here, of course. The area was settled in 1606 by the Spaniards, who constructed a Carmelite convent nestled amid the pines. Now the focal point of the park and a must for any visitor, the current Ex-Convento del Desierto de los Leones—with its curving domes, high walls, and cloistered courtyards—was constructed in 1814, long after its predecessor had deteriorated through gradual weathering and wear. After exploring the ex-convent and the huge forest sanctuary behind it, stroll around the immediate grounds, where you'll find a number of crafts and food vendors as well as a colorful little restaurant with table service, El Leon Dorado. The park lies 20 km (12 miles) southwest of the city center, and just 10 km (6 miles) beyond the modern commercial district of Santa Fe, at the junction of the 134 and 57 federal highways.

Extremely popular with Mexican families, especially as a place to stroll and people-watch on weekends, this historic and enchanting historic center laid out in the 1600s is sometimes described as what Coyoacán felt and looked like 30 years ago, before it became more of a must-see destination. Slowly but surely, Tlalpan's narrow lanes of colorful, historic houses and its charming tree-shaded hub, Plaza de la Constitución, are drawing more sizable crowds, but a visit here still feels manageable and relaxed, like you've stumbled upon a small colonial village far from the big city.

Do visit the Capilla de las Capuchinas, a few blocks away, to admire the strikingly modernist interior, which Luis Barragán completely redesigned in the late 1950s. You can also walk through the courtyard and view the interior of the imposing Parroquia de San Agustín de las Cuevas, on the east side of the plaza. Next door are a couple of good quick stops for a refreshment: historic La Jalisciense cantina for Spanish food and tortas, and an atmospheric branch of the local ice-cream chain, La Nueva Michoacana (which has been going strong since the early 1950s). If you can visit on a Sunday, you can enjoy watching locals, many of them seniors, dancing around the grand kiosco in the Plaza. Vendors sell crafts, souvenirs, and food while just a few steps south, Mercado de la Paz is a traditional market that also has plenty of food vendors. And although Tlalpan isn't flashy as a dining destination, there are a number of mostly traditional restaurants, cantinas, and food vendors on the blocks around the plaza, especially along pedestrianized Calle Guadalupe Victoria (which extends south from the plaza western's edge). Along here you'll also find the quirky but excellent Museo del Tiempo Tlalpan and the Museo de Historia de Tlalpan that, while not a must, offers free admission and gives a good overview of the neighborhood's history.

Finally, on the north side of the Plaza, the performance venue Multiforo Tlalpan often has concerts and other interesting shows—it's worth checking to see what's on. Tlalpan is in the south, easily visited in conjunction with Xochimilco, and most conveniently via Uber. But you could also save some pesos by taking the Metro to Universidad or the light rail to Huipulco, and taking much shorter Uber rides from either. Or you can take the Insurgentes Metrobus line south to the Fuentes Brotantes stop in Tlalpan Centro.

Some of the country's most celebrated modern architects—including Mario Pani, Enrique del Moral, and Teodoro González de Leon—designed buildings on the massive campus of UNAM, which sprawls across its own city within a city, the 2,500-acre (10-square-km) Ciudad Universitaria. Located in the southern reaches of the city, a little south of Coyoacán and San Ángel, the current campus was constructed in the 1950s on a then completely desolate field of petrified lava produced by the roughly AD 300 eruption of Xitle Volcano (a now dormant 1,000-foot-tall ash cone volcano about 8 km [5 miles] to the south). The university itself was established in 1910 and is one of the largest and most prestigious educational institutions in the world, with about 213,000 undergraduate and 30,000 graduate students enrolled across its numerous campuses around the country (as well as in extension schools in the United States and Canada). UNAM accepts only about 8% of applicants, and the campus here at Ciudad Universiteria is by far the largest and includes a number of outstanding architectural works and cultural attractions. Murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Juan O'Gorman appear on some buildings, most notably the 1956 functionalist Central Library, which O'Gorman designed in collaboration with Gustavo Saavedra and Juan Martinez de Velasco (and on which his massive murals appear). In addition to its outstanding museums and performance spaces, another highlight on campus is Jardín Botánico. UNAM also operates some other important institutions around the city, including Palacio de Mineria and Colegio de San Ildefonso (with its famous murals) in Centro Histórico, Casa del Lago in Parque Chapultepec, and Museo Universitario del Chopo in Santa Maria la Ribera.

A former pre-Hispanic city 21 km (13 miles) south of current-day CDMX city center, the Xochimilco neighborhood is well worth a visit to explore its vast, ancient network of canals and chinampas (man-made islands), which have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. When the first indigenous settlers arrived in the Valley of Mexico, they found an enormous lake. As the years passed and their population grew, the land could no longer satisfy their agricultural needs. They solved the problem by devising a system of chinampas, rectangular structures akin to barges, which they filled with reeds, branches, and mud. They planted the barges with willows, whose roots anchored the floating gardens to the lake bed, creating a labyrinth of small islands and canals on which vendors carried flowers and produce grown on the chinampas to market.

Today Xochimilco is the only place in Mexico where the gardens still exist. Go on a Saturday, when the tianguis (market stalls) are most active, or, though it's crowded, on a Sunday. On weekdays the distinctive community is usually much less crowded, so it loses some of its vibrancy but also its chaos. It's considered almost a mandatory custom to hire a trajinera (a flower-painted boat that's roughly akin to a large gondola); a colorfully painted arch over each boat spells out its name. You can hire the trajineras at several different points in town—the launch point along Calle de Mercado (just north of Camino a Nativitas) tends to be a little less crowded, as it's farther from the light-rail station, and a pretty pedestrian bridge crosses the canal, allowing for some great photos of these colorful boats. Expect to pay MP600 per hour for a boat that can accommodate up to around 18 passengers. Optional extras include beer, micheladas, and soft drinks along with mariachi and marimba bands, Bluetooth speakers, tour guides, and decorative arches for your boat made of actual flowers. As you sail through the canals, you'll pass mariachis and women selling tacos from other trajineras, and you'll pass by the bizarre Isla de las Munecas (the Island of Dolls), which you'll know when you see it. While a Xochimilco boat tour has become one of Mexico City's top experiences, note that it's not an activity for everyone—these are basically party boats that ply some pretty murky, badly polluted waters, and while the tours can be a lot of fun for groups of friends (less so for just a couple of passengers), Xochimilco is a long way to go for a touristy tour on a crowded canal. To get here, it's about a 45-minute to 1-hour drive, or you can take the metro to Tasqueña station, and then catch the light-rail commuter train to Xochimilco (a journey of about two hours each way).