Politics, Culture & Cuisine in Mexico City

Depart on independent flights to Mexico City. Upon arrival independent transfers to the Hyatt Regency Mexico City.

Enjoy a welcome dinner this evening at Agua y Sal restaurant located a few minutes’ walk from the hotel. 

Overnight: Hyatt Regency Mexico City

Meals: D

This morning, enjoy a visit to the Museo de Arte Popular. This folk-art museum is a wonderful space to get acquainted with the diversity of Mexican craftsmanship. Our guided tour here will be led by curator Fernanda Yáñez.

From here, head south to the Coyoacán main plaza. Cobblestoned and plant-filled, it is divided in halves, called Jardín Centenario and Jardín Hidalgo. They form a typical colonial Mexican town square, complete with benches for people-watching, gazebos for music and vendors selling balloons, toys, and traditional sweets. Enjoy a lovely lunch outside at Corazon de Maguey which overlooks the main plaza.

After lunch explore the final residence of Frida Kahlo, now known as the Museo Casa Azul. Preserved in the home are the personal objects that reveal the private universe of Latin America’s most celebrated female artist. 

Enjoy dinner this evening at Azul Condesa. Located in the heart of the fashionable Condesa neighborhood, the restaurant is part of the Azul group created by chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita, one of Mexico's foremost authorities on regional Mexican cooking.

Overnight: Hyatt Regency Mexico City

Meals: B, L, D

This morning, depart for the city’s historical core where we will enjoy a walking tour of the city’s foundations and colonial past. See the exterior of Templo Mayor, an ancient Aztec site thought to be on the exact spot where the Aztecs saw their symbolic eagle perching on a cactus with a snake in its beak – the symbol of Mexico today. Today the enormous plaza takes on an even greater festive with enormous altars honoring the dead. Right on the square is the Catedral Metropolitana, the first and largest cathedral in the Americas. 

Close by is the Palacio de Bellas Artes. View the immense murals by world-famous Mexican artists, such as, Rufino Tamayo and Diego Rivera. On the third floor is Diego Rivera’s famous El hombre en el cruce de caminos (Man at the Crossroads), originally commissioned for New York’s Rockefeller Center.

End the morning at the Museo Mural which is home to one of Diego Rivera’s most famous works - Sueño de Una Tarde dominical en la Alameda Central (Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central). This 45-foot-long mural was painted in 1947 and includes many of the figures who walked in the city from colonial times onward, among them Hernán Cortés, Benito Juárez, Porfirio Díaz and Francisco Madero. 

Enjoy lunch at the simple but wonderful Martina Fonda Fina where this traditional fonda feels like visiting a grandmother's home. The dishes change daily and are prepared with fresh, locally sourced ingredients.

After lunch, visit the offices of Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Centre for Human Rights (Centro Prodh), a non-profit civil association working to promote structural changes in order to achieve human rights in Mexico. Since 1988 they have been working with excluded, vulnerable, and disenfranchised groups, including indigenous people, women, migrants, and victims of social repression.

Late afternoon, meet with Lynda Martinez del Campo, a cultural historian, writer, and university professor who will talk about Mexican Muralism, a movement beginning in the early 1920s when the Mexican government commissioned artists to make art that would educate the mostly illiterate population about the country’s history and present a powerful vision of its future. Inspired by the idealism of the Revolution, artists created epic, politically charged public murals that stressed Mexico’s pre-colonial history and culture and that depicted peasants, workers, and people of mixed Indian-European heritage as the heroes who would forge its future. 

Enjoy dinner at leisure. 

Overnight: Hyatt Regency Mexico City

Meals: B, L

This morning, visit the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. Situated within the lush surroundings of Bosque de Chapultepec, the museum has a massive Mesoamerican artifact collection. Today we will concentrate on the Aztec and Mayan halls, which contain world-famous pieces from Mexico's pre-Hispanic period.

After lunch at the museum, visit the Museo Dolores Olmedo, one of Mexico City's most important art museums, renowned for holding the world's largest collection of works by Frida Kahlo and one of the finest collections of Diego Rivera. 

Before dinner, meet for a discussion focusing on the contemporary political landscape in the Mexico looking at the recent election. Claudia Sheinbaum, who won the election in a landslide, assumes the presidency amid high expectations and enormous challenges, including endemic cartel violence and a large national deficit. She took office at Mexico’s 66th president and its first female leader.

Leading the discussion will be Nicolás Medina Mora, writer, teacher, and journalist. He holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa, where he taught undergraduate courses in English and creative writing, and a BA from Yale University, where he studied literature and philosophy. He has worked as a reporter for Reuters, where he covered financial markets, and BuzzFeed News, where he covered crime. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, N+1, and Nexos. 

Enjoy dinner at leisure. 

Overnight: Hyatt Regency Mexico City

Meals: B, L

Depart the hotel to Teotihuacán, a large and majestic archaeological site located about 25 miles north of Mexico City and one of the largest and most important archaeological sites in Mexico. Famous for its large pyramids dedicated to the sun and the moon, the site also contains beautiful murals and carvings.

After a simple lunch at Teotihuacán, end the day at Polanco to enjoy a walking tour of some of Mexico City’s Street Art. Leading the group will be Abril, part of the Street Art Chilango team. Mexico City is known for its street art and street artists from around the city, the country and the world descend on the streets of Mexico’s capital to make their mark bringing to life a variety of designs — from the politically motivated to the aesthetically pleasing — on the walls of city streets.

Dinner this evening is at Sonia’s, located in the Juárez neighborhood of Mexico City, just a few blocks from Reforma and close to the Zona Rosa. The restaurant occupies a restored house on Oxford Street and has become popular for its warm atmosphere, house-made pastas, wood-fired breads, and classic Italian dishes prepared with a contemporary touch. 

Overnight: Hyatt Regency Mexico City

Meals: B, L, D

This morning, fly to Oaxaca, the most ethnically diverse of the country's 31 states, with 16 indigenous groups, the largest being Zapotec and Mixtec.

Upon arrival, spend the day exploring Oaxaca’s folk art. Enjoy a local lunch at Restaurante Azucena located in San Martín Tilcajete.

Visit a workshop near San Martín Tilcajete, where legions of artisans carved, whittled and painted wooden alebrijes (fancifully painted balsawood animals). These real and mythical animal figures represent spirits in Zapotec culture.

From here, drive to San Bartolo Coyotepec. Using a deposit of nearby clay, the Zapotec artisans of the region extract the raw materials of their craft. They have worked with this burnished clay pottery here for more than 300 years, using their traditional method of turning pots without a wheel.

At the end of the day drive to Oaxaca and check-into the Grand Fiesta America Oaxaca where authentic design and comfort are found in this well-located hotel. 

Dinner at a local restaurant.  

Overnight: Grand Fiesta America Oaxaca

Meals: B, L, D

This morning, enjoy a carefully crafted walking tour of Oaxaca. Founded by the Aztecs, Oaxaca became a Spanish outpost and remains a complex but intensely attractive city whose majestic churches and refined plazas have deservedly earned it a UNESCO World Heritage badge. 

We will begin at the church of Santo Domingo with its swirl of gold gilt interior and priceless artifacts. Walk down Alcalá and stop in at two markets to try “tejate” a ceremonial drink hailing from the Sierra Norte region of Oaxaca. It is a refreshing, lightly sweet blend of cacao, corn, cinnamon and mamey fruit and served in a bowl. For the adventurous try a “chapuline” – a toasted, chili-spiced grasshopper. 

Continue on to the San Pablo cultural center. Located in an ex-16th Century Dominican Convent, the Center actively promotes the culture of Oaxaca through a wide range of concerts, lectures, workshops and other events. 

A short drive away is Itanoní Antojeria y Tortilleria where we will have lunch. This small snack bar restaurant uses heirloom corn varieties to make extraordinary versions of very ordinary antojitos, corn tortilla-based small dishes that are the heart of the Mexican menu.

After lunch we will go to the village of Teotitlan del Valle, to meet with the Isaac Vasquez Family weavers who worked together with the master painter Francisco Toledo on the revival of the natural dyeing techniques.

Return to Oaxaca for a mezcal tasting before dinner at leisure.

Overnight: Grand Fiesta America Oaxaca

Meals: B, L

This morning, drive to Monte Albán for a guided tour of the most significant archeological site in the Oaxaca Valley, and one of the most important archaeological zones in Mesoamerica. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, Monte Albán is an ancient Zapotec metropolis, which was founded in the 6th century B.C. on a low mountainous range overlooking the city of Oaxaca. Its impressive architectural remains – terraces, pyramids, and canals – extend over some four miles.

After lunch enjoy time at leisure. Farewell dinner this evening at Casa Oaxaca.

Overnight: Grand Fiesta America Oaxaca

Meals: B, D

Return flights home

Meals: B