This busy pedestrian block tantalizes with piñatas, mariachis, and fragrant Mexican food. As the major draw of the oldest section of the city, known as El Pueblo de Los Angeles, Olvera Street has come to represent the rich Mexican heritage of L.A. It had a close shave with disintegration in the early 20th century, until the socialite Christine Sterling walked through in 1926. Jolted by the historic area's decay, Sterling fought to preserve key buildings and led the transformation of the street into a Mexican-American marketplace. Today this character remains; vendors sell puppets, leather goods, sandals, serapes (woolen shawls), and handicrafts from stalls that line the center of the narrow street. The quality of what you'll find ranges from Tijuana-style "junkola" (donkey-shaped salt and pepper shakers) to well-made glassware and pottery. Then there are those paintings on black velvet: tacky or hip? Up to you. On weekends, the restaurants are packed as musicians play in the central plaza. The weekends that fall around two Mexican holidays, Cinco de Mayo (May 5) and Independence Day (September 16), also draw huge crowds. To see Olvera Street at its quietest, visit late on a weekday afternoon, when long shadows heighten the romantic feeling of the passageway. For information, stop by the Olvera Street Visitors Center (622 N. Main St., Downtown. 213/628-1274. www.olvera-street.com), in the Sepulveda House, a Victorian built in 1887 as a hotel and boardinghouse. The center is open Monday-Saturday 10-3. Free 50-minute walking tours leave here at 10, 11, and noon Tuesday-Saturday.

Pelanconi House (W-17 Olvera St., Downtown), built in 1855, was the first brick building in Los Angeles. It has been home to La Golondrina restaurant since 1930. Avila Adobe (E-10 Olvera St., Downtown), was built as an 18-room home in 1818; today only a seven-room wing still stands. The remains have been converted to a museum space representing the oldest residential building still standing in Los Angeles. This graceful, simple structure features 3-foot thick walls made of adobe brick over cottonwood timbers, a traditional interior courtyard, and 1840s-era furnishings. Open daily 9-3.

Another landmark, the Italian Hall building (650 N. Main St., Downtown), isn't open to the public, but it's noteworthy because its south wall bears an infamous mural. Famed Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros shocked his patrons in the 1930s by depicting an oppressed worker of Latin America being crucified on a cross topped by a menacing American eagle. The anti-imperialist mural was promptly whitewashed but was later restored by the Getty Museum.

At the beginning of Olvera Street is the Plaza, a wonderful Mexican-style park with plenty of benches and walkways, shaded by a huge Moreton Bay fig tree. On weekends, mariachis and folkloric dance groups often perform. Two annual events particularly worth seeing: the Blessing of the Animals and Las Posadas. On the Saturday before Easter, Angelenos bring their pets (not just dogs and cats but horses, pigs, cows, birds, hamsters) to be blessed by a priest. For Las Posadas (every night between December 16 and 24), merchants and visitors parade up and down the street, led by children dressed as angels, to commemorate Mary and Joseph's search for shelter on Christmas Eve.