TOP 21 best attractions in Mexico

Mex­i­co is a sun­ny coun­try of friend­ly and emo­tion­al peo­ple, a land of cac­ti, jun­gles and cen­turies-old ruins. The col­or of the coun­try can be seen in every­thing: from the appear­ance of the streets to the taste pref­er­ences of local res­i­dents.

Things to do in Mexico

Tourists who come to Mex­i­co in search of the Fifth Sun and the ser­pent Quet­zal­coatl will def­i­nite­ly like the coun­try’s archae­o­log­i­cal zones, ancient cities and the ruins of Mayan tem­ples. Con­nois­seurs of archi­tec­ture will find quite ele­gant build­ings, ancient basil­i­cas and large-scale mod­ern build­ings on the Mex­i­can streets.

Those who want to get clos­er to the nat­ur­al beau­ty of Mex­i­co should vis­it nation­al parks and reserves, and, of course, explore the Caribbean coast. There are plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties for water sports here.

For fam­i­lies with chil­dren, Mex­i­co has enough good parks, zoos and enter­tain­ment areas. Fans of tor­tillas and beans, spicy chili and tequi­la will def­i­nite­ly appre­ci­ate the local cui­sine, which is espe­cial­ly cre­ative.

And, of course, Mex­i­co will open its soul to any­one who him­self will be open, cheer­ful and good-natured. The best time for this is bright, col­or­ful fes­ti­vals and hol­i­days. It is here that the col­or­ful Day of the Dead is cel­e­brat­ed on a grand scale and the third largest Car­ni­val in the world takes place.

Archaeological monuments

Teotihuacan

This huge archae­o­log­i­cal com­plex is locat­ed 48 km from Mex­i­co City and is a set­tle­ment of one of the ancient civ­i­liza­tions of pre-Columbian Amer­i­ca. The city was found­ed around the 3rd cen­tu­ry BC. and died about 650 AD. — either from cli­mate change, or from ene­my inva­sion. The name of the city was giv­en by the Aztecs, who set­tled its ruins in the XIV cen­tu­ry: trans­lat­ed from their lan­guage, it means “the place where the Gods touch the earth.” Accord­ing to the ancient ideas of the tribe, this is where the birth­place of the Fifth Sun is locat­ed.

Since the 17th cen­tu­ry, archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions have unfold­ed here, but the cur­rent appear­ance of the “ghost town” is a restora­tion. In the cen­ter of Teoti­hua­can stands the so-called Citadel, to which the 3‑kilometer Road of the Dead leads. On its east­ern side ris­es the third largest pyra­mid in the world — the Pyra­mid of the Sun. To the north of the road is the Pyra­mid of the Moon, sur­round­ed by oth­er tem­ples and the pyra­mi­dal tem­ple of Quet­zal­coatl, with­in which traces of buri­als have been found.

Chichen Itza

The ancient Mayan city on the Yucatan Penin­su­la is the real tourist cap­i­tal of Mex­i­co. The date of its foun­da­tion is con­sid­ered to be 455, while archi­tec­tural­ly the city cor­re­sponds to the cul­ture of the Maya (VI-VII cen­turies AD) and the Toltecs.

The most famous in Chichen Itza is the ancient sur­viv­ing pyra­mid of Kukulkan — a feath­ered ser­pent. Four stairs on the faces of the 9‑step pyra­mid are bor­dered by a stone balustrade with the image of a snake and have a total of 364 steps. At the very top is a tem­ple with 4 entrances.

Oth­er ancient build­ings are also of inter­est: an alley of a thou­sand columns, a wall of skulls, a tem­ple of war­riors and a tem­ple of jaguars, as well as sac­ri­fi­cial nat­ur­al wells locat­ed with­in the city.

Uxmal

Anoth­er ruins of the mys­te­ri­ous city of the Mayan civ­i­liza­tion are locat­ed in the Yucatan jun­gle in the Puuc area. “Thrice built” Uxmal flour­ished until the 11th cen­tu­ry, and then was aban­doned by its inhab­i­tants and was aban­doned.

The main dec­o­ra­tion of Uxmal is the Pyra­mid of the Wiz­ard, or, as it is also called, the House of the Dwarf. At each stage of con­struc­tion, a tem­ple was erect­ed in the body of the pyra­mid, of which there are as many as 5 pieces.

Anoth­er well-known com­plex of build­ings — the Con­vent — is dec­o­rat­ed with mosa­ic pan­els, and above its entrance arch, red prints of the Maya palms, who made a vow to the deity, are vis­i­ble.

El Meco Archaeological Zone

Anoth­er of the ancient Mayan set­tle­ments is locat­ed in Can­cun. Found­ed in the 3rd cen­tu­ry AD, it was at first a fish­ing vil­lage and grew into an impor­tant port point, which it remained until the 11th cen­tu­ry. After 500 years of des­o­la­tion, these lands were set­tled by the Indi­ans, and El Meco again began to turn into a major trad­ing cen­ter.

The main build­ing of this city is a 12-meter pyra­mid, which is often called “Castil­lo”. And on its top there is a tem­ple from which a panoram­ic view of the lagoon opens. In addi­tion to Castil­lo, there are 14 oth­er build­ings on the ter­ri­to­ry, but the exca­va­tions, which began in 1991, have not yet been com­plet­ed.

Palenque

Amaz­ing ruins remain from a city in the south­ern Mex­i­can state of Chi­a­pas. It is con­sid­ered the most refined and ele­gant in South Amer­i­ca. In the old days, the facades of its build­ings were ele­gant­ly dec­o­rat­ed with paint­ings and stuc­co, some of which have been recre­at­ed.

About one and a half thou­sand struc­tures have been pre­served on the ter­ri­to­ry of Palenque: aque­ducts, canals, res­i­den­tial build­ings. The most remark­able is the Tem­ple of Inscrip­tions, in the walls of which slabs with 620 hiero­glyphs are embed­ded.

Here, sci­en­tists dis­cov­ered a secret stair­case lead­ing to the tomb with the mum­my of Pacal the Great, the ancient ruler of the city. The slab of the sar­coph­a­gus depicts a man in a space­suit sit­ting in a space­ship, which gave ufol­o­gists rea­son to assume the exis­tence of a real con­nec­tion between the ancient civ­i­liza­tion and aliens.

Monte Alban

The old­est city of Mesoamer­i­ca is locat­ed on the moun­tain plateau of the state of Oax­a­ca, and it arose around the 5th cen­tu­ry BC. Dur­ing its long his­to­ry, Monte Alban man­aged to vis­it the cap­i­tal of the Zapotec state, under which it reached its great­est pros­per­i­ty. The name of the city was giv­en by the Span­ish con­querors in hon­or of the con­quis­ta­dor Diego López de Monte Alban.

On the ter­ri­to­ry of the city, many pyra­mids, tem­ples, gal­leries, as well as tombs dec­o­rat­ed with fres­coes and domes were dis­cov­ered. But the most inter­est­ing is the field for the ball game, which is dif­fer­ent from the sim­i­lar Mayan.

No less amaz­ing are the “danc­ing” bas-reliefs of the Dansantes tem­ple and the build­ing of the “obser­va­to­ry”, ori­ent­ed to the car­di­nal points, the points of entry of the three con­stel­la­tions and the ris­ing of the Capel­la star. There is a muse­um in the Monte Alban com­plex, which presents exhibits found dur­ing exca­va­tions in the 1920s.

Museums and theaters

Palace of Fine Arts

One of the sym­bols of Mex­i­co City is the opera house, the con­struc­tion of which last­ed for 30 years. Designed by archi­tect Adam Boari, the the­ater opened its doors to vis­i­tors in 1934. But for anoth­er 60 years, its ter­ri­to­ry was sup­ple­ment­ed and equipped accord­ing to the orig­i­nal idea of ​​the author.

The Car­rara mar­ble build­ing is dec­o­rat­ed in Art Deco and Beaux Arts styles, while the inte­ri­or walls were paint­ed by famous Mex­i­can mural­ists. The palace hous­es archi­tec­tur­al and art muse­ums, and sculp­tures adorn the park area adja­cent to the build­ing.

Frida Kahlo house

In Coyoa­can, there is a “blue house” — this is how the admir­ers of the Mex­i­can artist call the muse­um. Here Fri­da Kahlo was born and lived all her life. The inte­ri­ors of the premis­es, per­son­al belong­ings and paint­ings of the artist, can­vas­es, paints and palettes, as well as a col­lec­tion of her Mex­i­can cos­tumes have been pre­served in the house. Of par­tic­u­lar note is the exhi­bi­tion of stat­ues and arti­facts of the peo­ples of pre-Columbian Amer­i­ca, which Fri­da and her hus­band Diego Rivera col­lect­ed through­out their life togeth­er.

The walls of the build­ing are also inter­est­ing for their col­or­ful paint­ing. And in the court­yard there were idols of var­i­ous tribes, har­mo­nious­ly mixed with trop­i­cal plants and cac­ti grow­ing here.

Templo Mayor

A unique open-air muse­um appeared in Mex­i­co City in 1987 after sen­sa­tion­al archae­o­log­i­cal dis­cov­er­ies. Sci­en­tists have dis­cov­ered more than 7 thou­sand arti­facts, includ­ing ancient Aztec tem­ples and pyra­mids.

• The arche­ol­o­gy sec­tion con­sists of sculp­tures, var­i­ous rit­u­al and house­hold items of the peo­ples liv­ing here.
• The hall of rit­u­als and sac­ri­fices lifts the veil over the secrets of funer­al tra­di­tions and offer­ings to the ancient gods.
• The flo­ra and fau­na depart­ment holds the remains of ancient plants, ani­mals and fish.
• The agri­cul­tur­al expo­si­tion will tell vis­i­tors about the lev­el of agri­cul­tur­al devel­op­ment of the ancient civ­i­liza­tion.
• The trib­ute and trade sec­tion is replete with orna­ments, coins, scepters.
• Two sep­a­rate rooms are ded­i­cat­ed to the Aztec god of the sun and war Huitzilopochtli and the god of rain and thun­der Tlaloc.

Soumaya Museum

The futur­is­tic 46-meter build­ing of the Muse­um of Art, lined with alu­minum tiles, was com­mis­sioned by Car­los Slim, one of Mex­i­co’s bil­lion­aires. The muse­um itself bears the name of his deceased wife Sumaya. Since the build­ing has no win­dows, light enters the gal­leries through a trans­par­ent roof.

In total, the muse­um has 6 lev­els with unique expo­si­tions, includ­ing the largest col­lec­tion of coins of the colo­nial era, sam­ples of ori­en­tal sculp­ture, mas­ter­pieces of wood­carv­ing and ivory.

The muse­um has not only paint­ings by Leonar­do da Vin­ci, Picas­so, Brueghel, El Gre­co and oth­er Euro­pean artists, but also an exhi­bi­tion of sculp­tures by Rodin and Sal­vador Dali.

natural attractions

Cenote Ik-Kil

The most famous Mex­i­can karst fail­ure with the purest water is locat­ed near the Chichen Itza archae­o­log­i­cal park. The dis­tance from the sur­face of the earth to the water lev­el is 25 meters (almost twice as much to the bot­tom). A stair­case with two view­ing plat­forms is laid out along the wall, and plant roots hang from the walls and small water­falls flow.

Below is an arti­fi­cial beach with a plat­form where you can swim in the water, the con­stant tem­per­a­ture of which is always between +22 and +25 °C. Near the car park you can find a restau­rant, a sou­venir shop and a life jack­et rental shop.

Akumal beaches

The “tur­tle” resort, as the name Aku­mal is trans­lat­ed from the Mayan lan­guage, is locat­ed in the very cen­ter of the Mex­i­can Riv­iera. It became a tourist des­ti­na­tion in the 1950s, and since then the beach­es of Aku­mal Bay, Half Moon Bay and Jade Beach have been lit­er­al­ly crowd­ed with res­i­dents and guests of the coun­try.

White sand, coral reefs and clear waters attract thou­sands of vis­i­tors, includ­ing many lovers of div­ing and sport fish­ing. At the rental point you can take bicy­cles to go around the whole of Aku­mal and even go into the jun­gle. And watch­ing tur­tles, pel­i­cans, herons and oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fau­na can eas­i­ly cap­ti­vate both adults and chil­dren.

popocatepetl

The sec­ond high­est vol­cano in Mex­i­co — the rest­less Popocate­petl — is part of the Trans­verse Vol­canic Sier­ra. The low­er “green” part of the vol­cano is cov­ered with conif­er­ous forests, which smooth­ly turn into a stone “dead” zone. The top is cov­ered with non-melt­ing glac­i­ers.

The fer­tile soils sur­round­ing the vol­cano made it pos­si­ble to grow here the Thule Tree, whose trunk weighs 550 tons. On the slopes of the moun­tain you can see 14 monas­ter­ies dat­ing back to the 16th cen­tu­ry. They are exam­ples of Fran­cis­can, Domini­can and Augus­tin­ian archi­tec­ture.

Sian Kaan

In the Mayan lan­guage, the name of this bios­phere reserve sounds like “the place where the sky is born.” The site of untouched trop­i­cal forests and man­groves cov­ers an area of ​​more than 620,000 hectares. Here is the sec­ond largest coral reef in the world, as well as the incred­i­ble beau­ty of the lagoon and cenote.

These lands are inhab­it­ed by 300 species of birds and many mam­mals, and not only black­tip sharks and mar­lins, but also croc­o­diles, man­a­tees, and tur­tles live in the waters. Tourists are offered excur­sion pro­grams here, which include kayak­ing, swim­ming in cenotes, div­ing and snorkelling.

religious buildings

Cathedral in Mexico City

The Cathe­dral of the Assump­tion of the Blessed Vir­gin Mary is one of the old­est Catholic cathe­drals in colo­nial Amer­i­ca. It traces its his­to­ry back to 1573 and is locat­ed on Con­sti­tu­tion Square, form­ing a sin­gle ensem­ble togeth­er with the sac­risty and the Nation­al Palace.

Archi­tec­tural­ly, the basil­i­ca is a mix­ture of baroque, renais­sance and neo­clas­si­cism. The 110-meter nave is framed by two 70-meter tow­ers, dec­o­rat­ed with arch­es and columns, and the facades of the build­ing are dec­o­rat­ed with sculp­tures.

The inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion through­out is full of Renais­sance lux­u­ry, as evi­denced by the gen­er­ous use of gold, mar­ble and ivory in the fin­ish­ing work. The pride of the cathe­dral is the Altar of the Depar­ture and organs of the XVIII cen­tu­ry.

Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

This com­plex of sev­er­al tem­ples is con­sid­ered to be the main Mex­i­can cen­ter of pil­grim­age. Accord­ing to leg­end, the face of the Vir­gin Mary was imprint­ed on the lin­ing of the cloak of the Indi­an peas­ant Juan Diego when he wrapped ros­es in it. The shroud with a mirac­u­lous image has sur­vived to our time and pro­voked sci­en­tists to do a lot of research, but did not reveal its secret.

The main build­ing, known as the Old Basil­i­ca, dates back to the late 17th and ear­ly 18th cen­turies. Its sump­tu­ous baroque dec­o­ra­tion con­trasts with the aus­tere inte­ri­or. In the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry, the New Basil­i­ca was built near­by, intri­cate­ly lined with col­ored rec­tan­gu­lar slabs, where the sacred rel­ic is now kept.

The first basil­i­ca of the 16th cen­tu­ry is hid­den on a hill among the trees, and on the ter­ri­to­ry of the com­plex, in addi­tion to the incred­i­ble beau­ty of the bap­tis­tery, you can see sculp­tur­al images of reli­gious scenes. The tem­ple has a library, a muse­um and a sou­venir shop where you can buy a minia­ture stat­uette of the Vir­gin of Guadalupe.

Interesting places, parks and entertainment

Chapultepec Park

A huge park, cov­er­ing an area of ​​​​686 hectares, is locat­ed in Mex­i­co City and is con­sid­ered its “lungs”. The name of the park comes from the Tal­tec lan­guage, where it means “on grasshop­per hill”. Hav­ing grown in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry to its cur­rent size, the park was divid­ed into 3 parts:

• The first is as if strewn with mon­u­ments and foun­tains and has five muse­ums, one of which is locat­ed in the Cha­pul­te­pec Palace.
• In the sec­ond part of the park, formed in 1964, in addi­tion to muse­ums and foun­tains, there is an enter­tain­ment area with rides, restau­rants and cafes.
• The third zone, opened in 1974, is a nature reserve where you can go horse­back rid­ing and archery in the wild.

Eco-archaeological park Shkaret

The nat­ur­al reserve, locat­ed near Can­cun on the Yucatan Penin­su­la, organ­i­cal­ly com­bined the del­i­cate work of man and trop­i­cal nature. A large num­ber of arti­fi­cial pools, under­ground tun­nels, remains of ancient struc­tures are hid­den among the most beau­ti­ful back­wa­ters and thick­ets, and you can even swim in under­ground rivers.

The ter­ri­to­ry is inhab­it­ed by exot­ic ani­mals and birds: jaguars, par­rots and pink flamin­gos. And for those who want to have a bite, there are cafes and restau­rants with nation­al cui­sine.

Shel-ha Park

The eco­log­i­cal park of the lagoon and man­groves is entire­ly ded­i­cat­ed to the amaz­ing Mex­i­can nature and out­door activ­i­ties. Guests have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to swim with dol­phins and trop­i­cal fish, dive into an under­wa­ter cave and ride like a con­ven­tion­al or air bike.

Beach­es, tra­di­tion­al Indi­an baths and restau­rants will help you relax from the bus­tle of the city. And along the riv­er you can go down on an inflat­able ring, watch­ing the inhab­i­tants of the jun­gle and the waters of Mesoamer­i­ca.

Aquarium in Cancun

In the heart of Can­cun, there is an amaz­ing Aquar­i­um, opened in 2000. In the expo­si­tion tanks, repli­cat­ing the nat­ur­al habi­tat of their inhab­i­tants, you can see stingrays and eels, anemones and jel­ly­fish, sea­hors­es and fish.

The con­tact zone makes it pos­si­ble to hand-feed a tur­tle or stroke a man­ta ray, and the inter­ac­tion takes place strict­ly under the super­vi­sion of the staff. In addi­tion, vis­i­tors have a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to dive into the pool with tiger and blunt sharks, and every evening the Aquar­i­um hosts shows with dol­phins.

island of dolls

The mys­te­ri­ous island is locat­ed on one of the chan­nels of the Xochim­il­co area. This place is known for the fact that the her­mit Julian San­tana Bar­rera sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly hung the islands of old dolls on the trees, there­by try­ing to appease the spir­it of a lit­tle girl who drowned here before his eyes.

The sto­ry spread around the world after jour­nal­ists vis­it­ed the island at the end of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Tourists began to come to the island en masse and bring dolls with them for a strange col­lec­tor who died in 2001 in the same place where that girl was.

Over the long years of the exis­tence of the island, toys have lost their appear­ance, cov­ered with mold, many of them are miss­ing some details. Although this spec­ta­cle caus­es an oppres­sive feel­ing of anx­i­ety and long­ing among vis­i­tors, it invari­ably attracts with its mys­te­ri­ous atmos­phere.