Mexico City started as the capital of the Aztec kingdom and later of New Spain's Viceroyality. Now, the Mexican nation's capital city offers a cosmopolitan but still traditional atmosphere and enjoys freedom for gay people and legal same-sex marriage. The artistic and gastronomic scene is more active every day. Its neighborhoods are surprisingly quiet, safe and colorful, but it is also the city of masses, surrounded by millions of people living in humble quarters in the outskirts. It is connected by air routes to every big city in the world, and only 3 to 5 hours flying from any city in North America.
Here you'll find first-class hotels, superb museums, a romantic castle on top of a hill, ancient pyramids with archaeological treasures, all kinds of nightclubs, tequila and mezcal bars, microbreweries, sports clubs, typical and international restaurants, lovely neighborhoods and lots of places to be discovered in a guided tour. The main areas are:

• Downtown Mexico City: historic, religous art, archaeologic sites, gay herigage and museums.
• Reforma and Pink Zone: monuments, architecture, gay heritage, galleries and financial district.
  
• Roma and Condesa neighborhoods: restaurants, galleries, clubs, period and contemporary mansions.
  
• San Rafael, Santa María and San Miguel neighborhoods: galleries and middle class residential areas.
  
• Polanco District and Chapultepec Park: Museums, restaurants and art galleries, contemporary architecture.
• Coyoacan and San Angel: historic, artistic Spanish heritage, museums and university. South.
• Xochimilco District: canals, art museum, native American heritage. South.
• Teotihuacan: archaeological site on the border of Mexico Valley, famous for its sun and moon pyramids.
• Santa Fe: a business and financial hub, located on the
  hills to the Southwest. Contemporary architecture.

Roma and Condesa Neighborhoods

This couple of neighborhoods offer attractive places for staying, dinning and clubbing in an eclectic atmosphere. Restaurants and clubs are trendy, and you'll find gay-friendly hotels. Roma is a residential area with a growing entertainment scene, and is centrally located. Its belle époque mansions still show its aristocratic heritage, along with middle classes living among art galleries, schools, book and antiques shops. Condesa, on the other hand, is a more recent development with hipster and casual ways, Art Deco buildings, beautiful green areas, guesthouses and bars (including one gay nightclub), new restaurants, and fine boutiques. Condesa is today one of the city's dinning districts, it also has some venues for performing arts, and different kinds of music. Both areas are full of history, so it is a good idea to go on a walking tour to enjoy its lovely streets.

Coyoacan and San Angel

The charm of this residential areas consists in its hispanic heritage and the way people enjoy their leisure time. Coyoacan is relaxed, traditional and charming; it offers the opportunity to be closer to Mexican daily life, but also to admire the most traditional architecture in the city. Many artists, like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, have chosen Coyoacan to live and get inspiration, probably due to its legendary history. Today, you'll have a good selection of restaurants, shops as well as wonderful squares and handicrafts markets. In San Angel, you'll find cobblestone streets, aristocratic mansions and sophisticated restaurants, close to a beautiful Carmelitian monastery. San Angel is an ideal place to have dinner in one of the most iconic world-class restaurants in Mexico. On Saturdays, it offers an attractive, large bazaar with fine handicrafts.

Downtown Mexico City

The core of the ancient city, locally called "Centro Historico", is an amazing urban display of beautiful old buildings, squares, commercial activity, hustle and bustle, baroque churches and incredible museums, named one the of World's Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Mexico City's historic district is a unique mixture of Native American heritage and Spanish culture, devoted to trade. Here you'll find from bizarre to curious shops, along with fine expressions of art in the Cathedral, National Palace, Opera House, centenary mansions, school buildings, nunneries and monasteries. This area deserves more than a one day walking tour due to its vast number of sites, small museums and traditional restaurants, offering Spanish, Mexican and Sea Food cuisines. After dark, gay clubs welcome an eclectic crowd, looking for all kinds of musical beats, starting with the famous mariachi bands.

Chapultepec Castle

At the end of Reforma Avenue looms Chapultepec hill, noteworthy for the centennial forest which encircles it, and for the castle which crowns its summit. This park is proud of its world-class museums, amusement parks, its zoo, lakes and forests, crisscrossed by access routes. They are used by hordes of Sunday visitors, but you may enjoy a private guided tour to the castle.
The site used to be the summer residence for the Emperors of Mexico, Maximilian and Charlotte, as well as presidents of Mexico, who left there their exquisite decoration, furniture and memories of a glorious past. From its beautiful gardens you may enjoy a great view of the city, and discover many of its aristocratic features. Its museum keeps many treasures, jewels and portraits that will make you travel in time.
The castle is girdled by some very attractive neighborhoods: Polanco, Condesa, San Miguel, and Roma. Designed originally as residential enclaves, today they bring together many interesting buildings, cultural centers, bars and restaurants. Main hotels are located just in front of the Park and close to important business areas.

Polanco

Polanco may be the very essence of modern Mexico, the most cosmopolitan area in the city and a cuisine, clubbing and business hub. Located just North of Chapultepec Park, Polanco displays the best museums in the city and the newest shops. But its side streets are quiet and elegant, just beside educational institutions, embassies, synagogues, and gay friendly hotels.
Anthropology Museum is maybe one of the most attractive and rewarding museums in the world. It offers a unique collection of archaeological pieces and ethnic testimonies, which are displayed in an elegant way and are impressive to the senses. Here you'll find rich information: since the arrival of human beings in America to the famous Mesoamerican cultures, and their presence in today's people life.
Polanco also offers the attractive Soumaya and Jumex collections. These are the newest museums in the city covering a wide rage of epochs and styles, from European painting to the most trendy Latin American contemporary artists. Both buildings are an attraction on their own, and are surrounded by modern shopping centers, being part of the most trendy.

Teotihuacan Pyramids

Teotihuacan represent thousand years of civilization, prior to the Aztecs, which today can still be felt along its wide avenues projecting out towards the cardinal points, had to pass before this place could be elevated to the ranks of a mythical city.
Its pyramids are the most impressive expression of the peoples who inhabited this site, besides the myriad remnants of fine pottery and frescoes, which are today exhibited in museums. An excursion will take you to this fantastic area, located 50 kilometers northeast of Mexico City, a more sunny and dry area than the rest of the valley.
The ceremonial center is laid out in symbolic representation of two axes; the north-south axis is named the Avenue of the Dead from which, akin to the wings of a butterfly, buildings, palaces, plazas and altars extend to either side. At one end stands the Pyramid of the Moon and off to one side, rising in an immense stone mass, looms the Sun Pyramid; built with volcanic rock, limestone, and song.
Teotihuacan is not only a monumental city, but also a place where the mural paintings allow the visitor to delve into a world of mythical figures of gods, jaguars, nocturnal beings and undeciphered writings. The art of Teotihuacan does not end in its external manifestation but creates its own internal world of vases and ceremonial objects which, crafted over centuries, attained unprecedented levels of perfection.

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