Mexico City Off The Beaten Path

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Visiting the Pyramids of Teotihuacan is a great excursion from Mexico City. To get there, you can make arrangements with any of the many tour groups offering a package deal, however, you'll save a bundle if you just do it yourself like I did. Just take the Metro to the Indios Verdes stop (north end of the city). Here, you'll find a number of buses. Just walk all the way to the last bus platform ("anden"), which is platform J, and then walk toward the northern end of the platform (toward the mountains) and get on a bus that has a sign in the window for Teotihuacan (or it might just say "piramides"). The one hour ride should cost 25 pesos.

I went on a Sunday and visiting the pyramids was free. You should allow yourself a good three hours or more to have enough time to visit the pyramids and the other sights to see here. For more details, check out my Teotihuacan page.

If I wouldn't have met Rafael one day, I never went there, that's for sure, as he took me there to pick up his cousin Adrian.
Built on order of Hernán Cortés between 1521 and 1524, it is the only building of the 16th century in the Centro Historico. It was constructed in a place Aztecs called Huitzillan, referring to the first encounter between the emperor Moctezuma II and the Spanish conqueror on November 8, 1519 after entering Tenochtitlán. A monument on Calle Pino Suárez reminds of that event.
Cortés died 1547 near Sevilla (Spain), but his remains were carried 1794 to this church (entrance Calle Salvador).
In 1663 a rich indigenous woman named Petronila Jerónimo left this institution an image of Jesús Nazareno, origin of its current name.
The hospital is not Latin America's oldest, but the only one what has worked without interruption since its foundation.
In the upper level can be found murals by José Clemente Orozco.
Address: Pino Suárez and El Salvador, Centro Histórico Open: Mon-Sat 7am-8pm, Sun 7am-1pm and 5-8pm. Free admission. Metro: Zócalo.

About an hour outside Mexico City is the lovely mountain town of Cuernavaca. This town has a lot of charm and a great year-round climate. It was the city which the Aztecs named "the City of eternal spring."

In Cuernavaca, you can dine, shop and even stay the night at a terrif Relais and Chateaux hotel -- Las Mananitas.

It's a great day or overnight trip!

Six Flags is an ok theme park!
You will have fun, just try to arrive between 11.00 - 11.30 am, in that way your day will be just fine and will be finishing all games before rain comes.

Batman the Ride, Escopion, Kilahuea, Medusa and Superman, most be the first one you get in, they are always full! Just get out of the routine and meet some other people in the city.

Boomers is a great bar with live rock music. It's in the town of Cuautitlan-Izcalli. Everyone just likes to have a good time. The great thing about the people there is that they just like to have fun and they'll dance with you just to dance. The music is great too, great rock en espanol!

Remains of Aztec ''floating gardens'', Xochimilco [''Place where flowers frow'' in Nahuatl] are located some 20km south from Mexico City center.
You can board trajinera* for a slow ride round the gardens. I must say, I was a bit dissapointed with Xochimilco. Nothing really fascinated me and it was kind of boaring.
I think this is more apropraite for larger groups, that can have a party on trajinera.

To get to Xochimilco take metro No. 2, direction Tasquena, get of at the final stop and here take Tren Ligero to Xochmilco.

50 km northeast of Mexico City, you will find the ancient city of Teotihuacan. Walking on the wide avenues and climbing the pyramids is "another-worldly" experience.

The main avenue, "The Avenue of the Dead" (cheery name, isn't it?), is breathtaking. This is one of those places with an incredibly-high awe factor. The Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan is the world's third largest.

See my travelogue for more scences from this amazing place.

Mexico City has a long tradition in markets. The Market of Jamaica has 350 shops that sell a huge variety of flowers. Vendors also offer dry flowers and other accessories.
Browse the open air market and mingle with real Mexicans in a real setting.