Last spring, Ke and I had had an awesome time visiting Mexico City with some close friends. While I had a blast during my first time in Mexico in Cabo San Lucas, I wanted to experience the real side of Mexico. Ke had also been studying Spanish for over a year and really wanted to put his Spanish to the test.
Before this trip, we also decided to start trying for a baby. We felt comfortable booking this trip beforehand due to Mexico City’s altitude which makes it non risky for Zika. The day before we were to fly out I actually found out I was pregnant! We had so much fun celebrating in secret even though I had to miss out on the mezcal tastings =D
Food
The #1 thing you must do in Mexico City is eat as much food as possible. On our very first day, we did a tour of Merced Market with Eat Mexico, a local tour company. I highly recommend doing a food tour early on in your trip to learn as much about the different foods as possible. There is obviously much more to Mexican food than what we are familiar with as Americans. It helped us order tons of street tacos afterwards 😀
Here are some of the restaurants and bars we went to as well. Make sure to get reservations in advanced:
- Cafe Toscano (popular for their croissants)
- Lalo! (a delicious hipster place)
- Alba Cocina Local
- Rosetta (We weren’t able to go but heard great things about this place!)
- La Broka (Crazy good food for so cheap compared to San Francisco)
- Yuban
- Maximo Bistro (Make a reservation ASAP, we couldn’t get one)
Things to Do
Lucha Libre at Arena Mexico
I highly recommend seeing lucha libre in Mexico City, we had such a blast! Ke bought our tickets in advanced from Ticketmaster but after waiting in line for what seemed like forever to pick up the tickets, we realized it’s much easier to just buy tickets at the ticket counter the night of. The arena was a super quick Uber ride from our Airbnb in La Roma Norte and we had very little trouble picking up the tickets and finding our seat…albeit with the help of an usher that will demand a tip haha.
Teotihuacán Pyramids
This was a one of the highlights of the trip for me. Heading to the Teotihuacán Pyramids was very easy and affordable with Uber. I highly recommend hopping in an Uber vs trying to get here with public transportation or with a tour group. We left the city very early to avoid the crowds and arrived to the pyramids around 9:30 in the morning. We spent a few hours here hiking around and had no troubles getting an Uber back to the city.
Fridha Kahlo Museum and Coyoacan
We messed up big and did not buy tickets in to the Frida Kahlo museum in advanced. Otherwise you can expect to wait in line for hours. However, Coyoacan is amazing. We skipped the museum and decided to visit the local art markets filled with amazing goods – the type of goods that get marked up at insane prices back home. We also did a walking tour of the colorful streets and homes. It was a great way to spend half a day.
With More Time…
We only had approximately 4 days in Mexico City so with more time we would have checked out the many museums in the heart of the city as well as the Xochimilco canals. On our next trip to Mexico, we plan to spend more time in Mexico City on our way to Oaxaca!
