24 Best Sights in Mexico

This impressive art and history museum is housed in a pair of adjoining Spanish Colonial hospital buildings from the 1800s with a gorgeous contemporary atrium, several galleries, and a dramatic rooftop terrace with a bar, glass walls, and grand views of the Zócalo. Home to the private collection of pre-Columbian and colonial-era art of Mexican banker and philanthropist Manuel Espinoza Yglesias, Museo Amparo exhibits unforgettable pieces from all over Mexico, including nearly 5,000 pre-Hispanic artifacts. The collection includes colonial-era painting, sculpture, and decorative objects as well as a small modern art section notable for works by Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Miguel Felguérez, and Vicente Rojo.

One of Centro's most beautiful colonial palaces, built on land originally owned by Hernán Cortés's son Juan Gutiérrez de Altamirano, the Museo is both an excellent example of Mexico City's baronial 18th-century architecture and an interesting place for rotating exhibitions covering a wide range of subjects and interests. The original building was lost, with the current structure dating from 1778 when it was rebuilt as a palatial home for the counts of Santiago y Calimaya. By the early 20th century, the expansive structure had been broken into small, modest apartments, including one where the painter Joaquín Clausell (1866–1935) lived after arriving in Mexico City to study law. Claussel never finished his degree, instead going into exile due to his vocal opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. While in Europe, he learned to paint and ended up becoming one of the most important Impressionist painters in Mexican history. The museum displays historical objects from Mexico City, including antique maps. Clausell's studio is also open to the public, and its walls are covered with his work. Keep an eye out for the stone serpent's head, likely pilfered from the nearby Templo Mayor, embedded in the building's foundations on the corner of Pino Suárez and El Salvador.

Dedicated to the complex world of the Maya, this interactive museum is outstanding. Exhibits in Spanish and English trace Maya architecture, social classes, politics, and customs. The most impressive display is the three-story Sacred Ceiba Tree, a symbol used by the Maya to explain the relationship between the cosmos and Earth. The first floor represents the tree's roots and the Maya underworld, called Xibalba; the middle floor is the tree trunk, known as Middle World, home to humans and all their trappings; on the top floor, leaves and branches evoke the 13 heavens of the cosmic otherworld.

Architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez's outstanding design provides the proper home for one of the finest archaeological collections in the world. Each salon on the museum's two floors displays artifacts from a particular geographic region or culture. The collection is so extensive that you could easily spend days here, and even that might be barely adequate.

The 12 ground-floor rooms treat pre-Hispanic cultures by region, in the Sala Teotihuacána, Sala Tolteca, Sala Oaxaca (Zapotec and Mixtec peoples), and so on. Objects both precious and pedestrian, including statuary, jewelry, weapons, figurines, and pottery, evoke the intriguing, complex, and frequently warring civilizations that peopled Mesoamerica for the 3,000 years preceding the Spanish invasion. Other highlights include a copy of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma's feathered headdress; a stela from Tula, near Mexico City; massive Olmec heads from Veracruz; and vivid reproductions of Mayan murals in a reconstructed temple. Be sure to see the magnificent reconstruction of the tomb of 7th-century Mayan ruler Pakal, which was discovered in the ruins of Palenque. The nine rooms on the upper floor contain faithful ethnographic displays of current indigenous peoples, using maps, photographs, household objects, folk art, clothing, and religious articles.

Explanatory labels have been updated throughout, some with English translations, and free tours are available at set times from Tuesday through Saturday.

Surrounded by a park with mature trees and greenery, cannons, and a towering statue of General Anaya, this fascinating museum in San Diego Churubusco—a pleasant 15-minute walk east of Coyoacán's historic center—may just be the city's best museum you've never heard of. It's devoted to relating the surprisingly lengthy and storied history of Mexico's wars, dating from the 1810–21 War of Independence to the Mexican Revolution a century later. The exceptionally well-executed exhibits within the building's many galleries provide an impressive explanation of how exactly Mexico became, well, Mexico. But you don't need to be a history buff to appreciate the building, which occupies the former Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de Churubusco monastery, a glorious structure built in the late 1600s and converted into an ad-hoc military fort in 1847 during the Mexican-American War. In the exhibits, history is told through displays of uniforms, guns, flags, paintings, and other artifacts, including a diorama of the Battle of Churubusco and photos of Pershing's 1914 punitive expedition in search of the elusive Pancho Villa. The museum also contains a remarkable collection of original frescoes, religious paintings, and ex-votos from the building's period as a monastery. In addition, there's a tranquil community garden as well as galleries that host rotating shows. Part of the fun of touring the museum is observing the building's well-preserved sloping floors, beamed ceilings, fine tile work, and ancient arches.

Resting in the shadows of the Zona Arqueológica de Cholula, this engrossing museum inside a beautifully transformed 1910 psychiatric hospital has corridors connecting with the tunnels beneath the Great Pyramid. There are eight exhibit areas, each one touching on a different aspect of the region's art and history, including the nearby and quite active Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes, Pueblan pottery and meticulously painted alebrijes folk art, and, of course, the fascinating history of the pyramids. It's a pleasure walking through this extensive property's tree-shaded pathways and landscaped grounds. The outstanding gift shop, which is filled with interesting books and artwork, is set inside a contemporary structure with a curving roof and glass walls.

On the southeast side of Plaza de Armas, you'll find this fascinating museum that reopened following a massive renovation that was needed after the building was badly damaged in the major earthquake that struck the region in 2017. Prior to that, the building was named Museo Regional Cuauhnáhuac, but it's also known as the Palacio de Cortés. The fortresslike building was constructed as a stronghold for Hernán Cortés in 1522, as the region had not been completely conquered at that time. His palace sits atop the ruins of Aztec buildings, some of which have been partially excavated. There are plenty of stone carvings from the area on display among the 19 exhibit galleries, with a highlight being the murals Diego Rivera painted between 1927 and 1930 on the second floor, depicting the history of Morelos.

This elegant 17th-century Franciscan monastery displays pre-Hispanic and indigenous artifacts from cultures of the region plus rooms dedicated to the colonial history of Querétaro and the general history of Mexico. There are early copies of the Mexican Constitution and the table on which the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed.

The ruins of the sacred shrine of the Mexica (also commonly known as the Aztec) empire, built here in the 14th century, were unearthed accidentally in 1978 by telephone repairmen and the vast, 3-acre archaeological site has since become the old city's most compelling museum. At this temple, whose two twin shrines were dedicated to the sun god Huitzilopochtli and the rain god Tláloc, captives from the empire's near-constant wars of conquest were sacrificed in rituals commemorated in carvings of skulls visible deep in the temple compound. The adjacent Museo del Templo Mayor contains thousands of pieces unearthed from the site and others across central Mexico, including ceramic warriors, stone carvings and knives, skulls of sacrificial victims, models and scale reproductions, and a room on the Spaniards' destruction of Tenochtitlán. The centerpiece is an 8-ton disk unearthed at the Templo Mayor depicting the dismembered moon goddess Coyolxauhqui.

The proximity between Templo Mayor and Catedral Metropolitana is no coincidence. When the Spanish conquistadors defeated the Mexica empire, they intentionally destroyed their places of worship, and used the stones from the temples to build churches.

The largest of the city's bastions contains the Museo de Arquitectura Maya with artifacts from several Campeche State Mayan sites. The bastion was originally built to protect the Puerta de Mar, a sea gate that served as one of four original entrances to the city. Because it uses no supporting walls, it resembles a Roman triumphal arch. Its relatively complete parapets and embrasures afford views of the cathedral, municipal buildings, and old houses along Calle 8.

This bastion, where Calle 8 curves around and becomes Circuito Baluartes, houses the Museo de la Ciudad with a small collection of artifacts, including several Spanish suits of armor and a beautifully inscribed silver scepter. Captured pirates were once jailed in the stifling basement dungeon. The unshaded rooftop provides an ocean view that's lovely at sunset.

If you fly into Mexico City at night, there's a good chance you'll spot the tower of this museum; located on the south side of the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, its stoic modernist facade is clad in Moorish starbursts of red and purple neon. The museum hosts regularly rotating exhibitions of contemporary art, often experimental in nature, and a moving permanent memorial to the 1968 massacre that occurred on the plaza, installed in honor of that event's 50th anniversary.

Near the city's southwest end, Avenida Ruíz Cortínez winds to this hilltop fort with a breathtaking view of the Bay of Campeche. Built between 1779 and 1801 and dedicated to the archangel Michael, the fort was positioned to blast enemy ships with its long-range cannons. As soon as it was completed, pirates stopped attacking the city. In fact, the cannons were fired only once, in 1842, when General Santa Anna used Fuerte de San Miguel to put down a revolt by Yucatecan separatists.

The fort houses the 10-room Museo de la Arqueología Maya. Exhibits include the skeletons of long-ago Maya royals, complete with jewelry and pottery, which are arranged just as they were found in Calakmul tombs. Other archaeological treasures are funeral vessels, wonderfully expressive figurines and whistles from Isla de Jaina, stelae and stucco masks, and an excellent pottery collection. Most information is in Spanish only, but many of the pieces speak for themselves. The gift shop sells replicas of artifacts.

Whether or not the Grand Museum of the Mayan World lives up to its lofty name depends on your tastes and expectations, but the institution certainly makes a big architectural splash. The starkly modern building was designed to resemble a giant ceiba tree, sacred to the Maya, and it looms over the northern outskirts of town on the highway to Progreso. (Plan on a MX$150 Uber or DiDi ride from downtown.)

The museum's amazing collection of Maya artifacts are exhibited in four themed halls: The Mayab, Nature, and Culture; Ancestral Maya; Yesterday's Maya; and Today's Maya. Much of the space is given over to multimedia presentations, including interactive screens that are enormously popular, especially with younger visitors. One all-the-rage panel of screens, for instance, lets you tap in your birth date, convert it to the corresponding date on the Maya calendar, and email yourself your Maya horoscope. Everything here—artifact labeling and multimedia narration—is trilingual (Spanish, English, and Mayan). The adjoining Mayamax theater screens films, and there is an on-site concert hall, too.

This former convent (sometimes called Ex-Convento de Santa Mónica) opened in 1688 as a spiritual refuge for women whose husbands were away on business. Despite the Reform Laws of the 1850s, it continued to function until 1934. It is said that the women here invented the famous dish called chiles en nogada, a complex recipe that incorporates the red, white, and green colors of the Mexican flag. In the museum's 23 permanent exhibit galleries, curiosities include the gruesome display of the preserved heart of the convent's founder and paintings in the Sala de los Terciopelos (Velvet Room), in which the feet and faces seem to change position as you view them from different angles.

Filling two floors of a former hotel, Cozumel's museum has displays on natural history—the island's origins, endangered species, topography, and coral-reef ecology—as well as human history during the pre-Columbian and colonial periods. The photos of the island's transformation over the 20th and 21st centuries are especially fascinating, as are the exhibit of a typical Maya home and a room devoted to the island's carnaval traditions. Guided tours are available.

Officially called the Museo Universitario Dr. Luis Mario Schneider and located near the entrance to Zona Arqueológica de Malinalco, this small but informative museum installed within a gracious orange mansion with galleries surrounding a plant-filled courtyard makes an excellent companion piece to the archaeological site. Exhibits are filled with both original and reproduced artifacts and artwork dating back to the Aztec period as well as photos and dioramas that interpret the region's history right up until the present day. 

Established in 1999 within the walls of a dramatic church that was part of a 17th-century monastery (most of which is now occupied by a military installation across the street), this free and rather underrated museum tells the story of Mexico's history, its formation into a republic, and even aspects of its demographics and economics (there are hydrography and mining maps, for example) through a series of maps and even more ancient codices that date back to the early days of New Spain. These documents cover the walls of the entire domed structure, and in the transept there's also a display of map-making equipment, from antique sextants to clunky GPS devices from the early 2000s. Signage is in both Spanish and English. Ironically (or perhaps as some sort of cosmic joke), using the map on your phone to get to this museum on the western edge of Tacabuya—just a 15-minute walk from Condesa—can be a bit tricky. The museum sits in the middle of a fenced-in island of sorts, surrounded by busy two-lane roads on all sides; to get in, go to the intersection of Anillo Periférico and Avenida Observatorio and go through the unmarked pedestrian underpass, which leads to a small plaza in front of the museum.

The San Carlos collection occupies a handsome, 18th-century palace built by Manuel de Tolsá in the final years of Mexico's colonial period. Centered on an unusual oval courtyard, the neoclassical mansion became a cigarette factory in the mid-19th century, lending the colonia its current name of Tabacalera. In 1968, the building became a museum, housing a collection of some 2,000 works of European art, primarily paintings and prints, with a few examples of sculpture and decorative arts ranging in styles.

No visit to the lovely Spanish colonial city of Tepotzotlán is complete without checking out the National Museum of Viceroyalty of New Spain, which contains an exceptional collection of art, furniture, and other items from primarily the 1500s through the mid-1800s. The museum is set inside the former College of San Francisco Javier, which was built by Jesuit priests in 1580. The ornate baroque architecture—in particular the gilded interiors—of the museum and its surrounding complex of colonial buildings is reason alone to visit. But the decorative arts inside, including stunning carved cedar retablos covered in 23-karat gold-leaf, as well as fascinating exhibits that detail the 300 years of Mexico's New Spain period, are also tremendously impressive. The museum sits right on Centro Tepotzotlán's main Plaza de la Cruz, which can sometimes be packed with crowds. For some quiet and a breath of fresh air, head out to explore the tree-shaded lawns and gardens in the back, which you can access from the lower floor in the rear of the museum.

This small museum managed by the Mexican Navy has a permanent exhibition about Mexico's relationship with the sea, from the Spanish conquest through modern times. You'll see interesting pieces of antique artillery and silver jewelry, and learn about the history of the Nao de China, a Spanish sailboat that used to navigate the Pacific all the way to China and the Philippines in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Constructed as a seminary and public library in 1701, this has been the Guadalajara Regional Museum's home since 1918. First-floor galleries contain artifacts tracing western Mexico's history from prehistoric times through the Spanish conquest. Five 19th-century carriages, including one used by General Porfirio Díaz, are on the second-floor balcony. There's an impressive collection of European and Mexican paintings.

The most compelling of the mansions on Paseo de Montejo, this stately residence was built for General Francisco Cantón between 1909 and 1911. Designed by Enrique Deserti, who also drew up the plans for the Teatro Peón Contreras, the building has a grandiose air that seems more characteristic of a mausoleum than a home: there's marble everywhere, as well as Doric and Ionic columns and other Italianate Beaux-Arts flourishes. It now houses the Museo Regional de Antropología de Yucatán which focuses mostly on Maya history, art, and culture and sometimes other aspects of Yucatecan life. The exhibitions are generally excellent although signage is often only in Spanish, or Spanish and Mayan.

This lofty redoubt, or stronghold, at the northwest end of town, is home to the Museo de Armas y Barcos. Displays in former soldiers' and watchmen's rooms focus on 18th-century weapons of siege and defense. You'll also see manuscripts, religious art, and ships in bottles. The view is terrific from the top of the ramparts, which were once used to spot invading ships.