We are a senior couple. We have been to Mexico City but nowhere else in the country. We tend to fly, not drive, between destinations.

if we go to Oaxaca City in Jan. Or Feb. 2027, what would be a good hotel base? Would it be walkable to several churches and markets?

What would be some casual restaurants to try?

Are there some recommended walking tours? Culinary backstreets tours?

What should we not miss?

And how many days would you advise? So many thanks in advance!

We loved Mexico City.our interests tend toward both art and history museums, architecture, textiles, not mezcal tasting or cooking classes.

Some thoughts, having been to OdJ (Oaxaca de Juárez) many times over the years, flying, driving and by bus (from Puebla and/or cdmx).
While it makes for a long first day of travel, you may want to investigate flying into MEX, then taking a bus (estrella roja) directly from MEX to Puebla and spend a couple of nights there. Then bus to Oaxaca. It's a good way to experience a bit more of colonial Mexico & unique food (in Puebla) without being too far out of the way at all. And the bus ride from Puebla to Oaxaca is very scenic. Of course United has flights to/from Houston IAH direct to OAX.
We almost always stay at Suites la Fe, a small apartment complex of like 5 units. Easy walk to the Zócalo, very quiet even though it's on a busy street. There's a small tiendita around the corner and next door to that a nice little bakery. They're also vrbo & booking.
https://suiteslafe.com.mx/
There are tons of good restaurants in OdJ, casual as well as more upscale. IMO, the restaurants around the Zócalo are, disappointingly, average at best but good for people watching and marimba listening. Of those we always stop at Cafe Terranova, not necessarily for dinner but a couple of beers and/or a snack or lunch. Be polite to the vendors & beggars and feed the pigeons some bread or peanuts. If kids come begging, we offer bread or tortillas instead of coins. Wife and I like a craft beer or 2, and the La Santísima flor de Lúpulo is casual with good beer. La Olla is pretty casual. Tons of others, a few we liked are no longer.
Walking tours. You'll find Oaxaca has lots of nice andadores turísticos (tourist walkways) for which you don't need a guide. The Mercado Benito Juárez is fun. Sample some chapulines, buy some coffee at Grano de Oro. Even if you're not wanting to do mezcal tasting, the flavored mezcal samples in the market are mild. The 20 De Noviembre mercado across the street is the food market, lots of stalls and pan de yema (egg yolk bread) vendors. Walk around that general area for trinkets & chocolate.
Not to miss? Monte Alban. Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca, in the restored Santo Domingo convent. If you can arrange a driver, a day trip to the central valley would be good. Santa Maria del Tule, Hierve de Agua, Teotitlan (textiles), Mitla (archeological site). Many drivers will want to stop for mezcal sampling just ask them not to. Ex-convento de Cuilapam is eerie but interesting if you can get there. It's where Vincente Guerrero was imprisoned & executed.
How many days? A week, bare minimum. 10 days if you can; you'll love Oaxaca. If you are able to include Puebla as I suggested, then 2 weeks.

BaldOne, what a generous, helpful reply. Thank you.

We visited Oaxaca in January for the first time and really enjoyed our time there (definitely will go back). We had perfect weather in early January. We stayed at Hotel Casa Pereyra and thought it was a great base within walking distance to many sites. It's a small hotel run by a lovely couple - I believe it was her family home. We had the hotel hire a driver for us for a day to see Monte Alban, the Cuilapam monastery, and Zaachila tombs. We also took one of the Culinary Backstreets tours and found it worthwhile. This was maybe our fourth one (also Porto, Palermo and CDMX). Lots of good restaurants. I don't post trip reports, but look for one here from progol. She stayed in the same hotel we did (a year or two before us) and has a detailed report with lots of photos.

Thanks Ms for that reminder-I was thinking of her TR as well. Much more detail than my post.
We LOVED Oaxaca!

Not much to add after progol's report!

We stayed at the Quinta Real, a short walk from Santo Domingo and a number of restaurants. The zocalo is a bit farther but still very walkable. The hotel is spectacular, built in an old convent, with many original features. Unfortunately, it is fairly pricey by Mexican standards.

One nearby restaurant we enjoyed was Los Danzantes.

A hallway in the hotel, massive walls, a bit of fresco . . .

If you're interested in architecture, we also took this tour offered through Airbnb Experiences. We learned about it from another guest at our hotel. I wish we'd done it at the beginning of our stay rather than at the end. Magical Architecture of Oaxaca

Ms. go. Thank you. Isn’t Porto fun, too?

BaldOne, ?fra, Ms Go, yes. Progol’s was perfect and thanks for the tip on that other tour. Just my thing!

Not to Miss: How did I forget Sunday evenings in the Zócalo? Families are all out together, balloon vendors, and often dancing to the orchestra: the essence of Oaxaca. If you're really lucky, the state marimba band will be playing-but I haven't seen them play in the Zócalo for several years now.

I recommend Itanoni which is located at the edge of the colonial center.
https://itanoni.website/menu

https://flic.kr/p/qypR1y

The Ruffino Tamayo Museum is a gem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_...Tamayo,_Oaxaca

https://flic.kr/p/7o3KqF

I so appreciate your generous suggestions! Never having been there, I welcome more!

I was going to post my trip report - but I see I was beaten to the punch! We loved Oaxaca and hope to go back sometime next year.

I agree that Progol's post pretty much says it all. In particular, her hotel recommendation sounds like a winter, but FWIW, I'll add a few additional thoughts, since we were in Oaxaca for our first visit on January 26th - 29th.

Oaxaca has lots of hotels, many of them very good. We stayed at the Quinta Real, which seems to be about the top of the line in Oaxaca. It's in a restored/converted convent, part of which was shown in photos posted by another responder. It has large courtyards with a beautiful pool. There's a corridor inside that has photos showing what a wreck it was prior to its restoration. Even if you're not staying there, it would be worth stopping by and asking if you can walk around for a couple of minutes to see those photographs and what it looks like now. And in any case, it has a large adjacent gallery where they allow merchants to sell their wares, so you can certainly get in there, and I think it opened onto the courtyard with the pool. Quinta Real is on Cinco de Mayo Street, about two blocks south of the Santo Domingo Church, the biggest and most impressive in Oaxaca (even more so than the cathedral). There was a nice souvenir shop with some good alebrijes on the right as you head up the street past the QR towards the church. It was also only 2-3 blocks off the Zocalo. Indeed, with was no more than about a 10-minute walk from everything in the centro.

Other promising hotel possibilities include Casa Sierra Azul (927 ratings, and reasonable prices) and Hotel Boutique Naura (1007 reviews, and with rooms for $140/night). The types of services in term of arranging transportation to other sites in the valley can be handled by the concierge or management at any of the better hotels in town.

For alebrijes (the painted animal figurines carved from the soft copal wood that are a classic Oaxaca souvenir), and other crafts, Huizache Artesanias on the street running north from the cathedral, with entrances both facing the cathedral and on the N/S street, is two floors with a huge selection of all kinds of Oaxacan crafts, including clothes. They have a superb selection of alebrijes, but at prices that generally range from 6,000 Mexican pesos ($350) up to as much as 25,000 pesos ($1,500). But many of these are amazing works by masters of the craft -- it's worth stopping in just to look them over. (The latest trend in carving alebrijes is these amazing snakes with all sorts of bends and curls -- all of the better alebrijes are carved from a single piece of wood). Moreover, across the street in a plum-colored building is a school teaching alebrijes run by Jacobo and Maria Angeles, who are highly regarded masters in their own work. They have very high-end and relatively costly alebrijes for sale at prices you would expect, but also student work that's often surprisingly inexpensive (in part because it comes in a wide variety of sizes: the smaller ones would be great souvenirs for grandchildren) and of very high quality as well.

I agree with Progol's rave about a visit to the Zapotec Indian weavery of Casa Juan in Teotitlan del Valle, outside of the city (but not very far). The educational presentation that Juan Carlos, the current head of the family firm gave us, was extraordinary, and his English is excellent. We bought two of their weavings, one for 9,000 pesos and another for 15,000. This is lot more than we'd normally pay for souvenirs, but these are works of art. (And I still kick myself for not having bought Navajo rugs back in the '90's before all the internet and Silicon Valley millionaires discovered them).

Monte Alban was extraordinary, and Montezuma's cypress in Santa Maria del Tule is on the way back from Teotitlan and well worth a stop. We didn't have tiime to further explore other sites outside of the city like El Mitla.

If you're taking a trip just to Oaxaca, a stay of 5-6 days, maybe even 7, is definitely supportable. But you can also see quite a lot in 4. The historic center can be walked end-to-end in 10-15 minutes, so you can see a lot quickly.

I would add that I also found Puebla extraordinary. The cathedral there is one of the most striking anywhere in the world. There is far more of historical importance there. We were in Puebla for 2-3 days and I could have happily doubled that time, particularly with all the other remarkable places like some of the smaller towns with amazing churches like San Andres Cholula and Santa Maria Tonantzinla that are nearby. I am a connoisseur of churches, and God knows how many I have visited in my life of travels to date, but I don't think I have ever seen anything that amazed me as much as the latter -- with the possible exception of the Capilla del Rosario in Puebla.

Wonderful advice. I appreciate!

Don’t overpack your schedule - Oaxaca’s best enjoyed slowly; just base yourself in Centro and you’ll naturally stumble onto great food and beautiful architecture.