39 Best Sights in Mexico

Located next to the cathedral, the building that houses this museum has served in the past as a seminary, an art school, and even a military barracks. It now showcases the works of contemporary Yucatecan artists and hosts a variety of temporary exhibits featuring leading Mexican and international contemporary artists. It's free to visit; just sign the guestbook.

Housed in the 16th-century Hospital de San Juan de Dios, this museum houses thousands of works collected by Franz Mayer, who emigrated from his native Germany to Mexico in 1905 and went on to become an important stockbroker. The permanent collection includes 16th- and 17th-century antiques, such as wooden chests inlaid with ivory, tortoiseshell, and ebony; tapestries, paintings, and lacquerware; rococo clocks, glassware, and architectural ornamentation; and an unusually large assortment of Talavera (blue-and-white) ceramics. The museum also has more than 700 editions of Cervantes's Don Quixote. The old hospital building is faithfully restored, with pieces of the original frescoes peeking through. You can also enjoy a great number of temporary exhibitions, often focused on modern applied arts. 

The former home of renowned mid-20th-century silversmith William G. Spratling houses some 140 of the artist's original designs plus a vast collection of both original and reproduction pre-Columbian artifacts. Exhibits also explain the working of colonial mines.

Found within the refurbished Santa Inés convent, this inviting museum displays international modern art as well as work by Mexico's enfant terrible, José Luis Cuevas, one of the country's best-known modern artists (1934–2017). The highlight is the sensational La Giganta (The Giantess), Cuevas's eight-ton bronze sculpture in the central patio. It represents male-female duality and pays homage to Charles Baudelaire's poem of the same name. Up-and-coming Latin American artists appear in temporary exhibitions throughout the year.

Founded by an heir to the Jumex juice fortune, this contemporary art museum is located just across the way from the Museo Soumaya, and though the subdued travertine building that houses it is not as eye-popping as Carlos Slim's shiny silver cloud next door, the exhibition design of the Jumex is arguably superior. Shows draw from the museum's 2,700-strong collection, which includes boldfaced names like Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and Andy Warhol, as well as temporary exhibitions of work by international contemporary artists. There's also an on-site café and store.

This museum with a big gift shop (or shop with a small museum) and café features small expositions of contemporary Mexican design. The goals of the museum are to provide a space for design, to assist local designers, and to offer a location in which designers can make money from their craft. Exhibitions, open only through guided tours in Spanish every half hour from 10 am to 8 pm, are shown in a back room made of brick, where you can see the old archways from Cortés's patio, which was built, in part, on top of Moctezuma's pyramid. The shop is open to the public.

The collections of the National Art Museum occupy one of Centro's most impressive neoclassical buildings, designed by Italian architect Silvio Contri in the early 20th century. The works in the permanent collection, organized in galleries around a gracious open patio and grand central staircase, span nearly every school of Mexican art, with a concentration on work produced between 1810 and 1950. José María Velasco's Vista del Valle de México desde el Cerro de Santa Isabel (View of the Valley of Mexico from the Hill of Santa Isabel) is on display; the collection also includes artists such as Diego Rivera and Ramón Cano Manilla. Keep an eye out for temporary exhibitions of works by Mexican and international masters. 

Founded in 1964 by the late artist Alfredo Guati Rojo, this museum devoted entirely to watercolor painting makes for an enjoyable detour if you're strolling along nearby Avenida Francisco Sosa. Admission is free, and the two-story white house that contains the galleries is surrounded by pretty flower gardens and hedges, which you can admire from the terrace of the small museum café. The art includes dozens of works by Rojo and his wife, plus galleries devoted to watercolor paintings by Mexican, international, and contemporary artists; a separate building across the garden stages temporary exhibits.

The Plaza Loreto branch of the famed art museum in Polanco contains several huge exhibition rooms set inside the upper level of a colonial-era warehouse building that now houses shops and restaurants. It's a bit south of the heart of San Ángel, and not necessarily worth a trip all on its own, but admission is free and the exhibits are quite interesting and include an extensive look at the life and work of renowned Mexican architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez (of Estadio Azteca and Museo Nacional de Antropologia fame). There are also wonderful collections of Venetian paintings, Flemish tapestries, and early Mexican photography.