3 Best Shopping in Mexico City, Mexico

It's worth visiting San Ángel on a Saturday just to visit the upscale artisan market that's been going strong there since 1960. Before you even make it into the grandiose colonial mansion, you'll encounter dozens of vendors selling crafts, wood carvings, embroidered clothing, leather goods, wooden masks, beads, amates (bark paintings), and trinkets at stalls just outside and around Plaza San Jacinto and adjacent Calle Benito Juárez. Inside, on two levels that encircle a beautiful courtyard, are the (generally) better-quality—and higher-priced—goods, including alebrijes (painted wooden animals from Oaxaca), glassware, pottery, jewelry, fashion, furniture and housewares, and a smattering of gourmet goods and beauty products. There's also a decent traditional Mexican restaurant in the courtyard, which has a massive tree looming over it. The bazaar is open only on Saturday, but if you're unable to visit in person, check out the website, where you can purchase many of the goods online (shipping is free in Mexico City for orders over MX$799 and can be arranged for international deliveries).

Enormous La Lagunilla has been the site of trade and bartering for more than five centuries. It's open every Sunday, when vendors set up along Confort Street and along the alley connecting to Paseo de la Reforma, selling everything from antique paintings and furniture to old magazines and plastic toys. Dress down, and watch out for pickpockets.

Also referred to as either Mercado Zona Rosa or Mercado Londres, this is the neighborhood's largest crafts market, featuring artistry from across Mexico, including jewelry, ceramics, and clothing. Vendors here can be intense, calling you to their stalls with promises of low prices (which you may or may not find). The market is an entire block deep, with entrances on both Londres and Liverpool. Most of the stalls sell silver and pewter, or crafts like serapes and ponchos, baskets, pottery, fossils, jade, obsidian, amber, and onyx. Expect to pay slightly higher prices here than at the Mercado Artesanal de la Ciudadela. Opposite the market's Londres entrance is Plaza del Angel, a small, upscale shopping mall, the halls of which are crowded by antiques vendors on weekends.