Are 5 days enough to check Mexico City and the surrounding areas?

Question

We plan to visit Mexico City and the surrounding areas next week. Are 5 days enough to check them out?

How about Cancun

Answer 1

1.-Old Downtown or Centro Historico: check out the main square, the 300 year old buildings,the Templo Mayor and the Palace of Fine Arts, The National Palace Try to catch a performance of the Ballet Folklorico at the Palace of Fine Arts

2.-Don't miss Teotihuacan (link below)

3.-Check Chapultepec Park and Chapultepec Castle (The only real castle in North America) The Anthropology Museum will take the better part of a day.

4.-Go take a ride in the Subway (u will be amazed how quiet it is, the cars run on rubber wheels)  (link below)

5.-If possible go to San Angel on Saturday for the Bazar del Sábado  (see the link below)

6.-I've been to Mexico City five times but always run out of time to get to Xochimilco (link below)

Answer 2

the poster named "leito" has a good plan...i am going to use his idea and expand on it.

on day one you can see the dowtown (zocalo) and templo mayor and museum.  the alameda leads to the palacio nacional where you can hope to see a great cultural show...balet folklorico for example.  just walk down the alameda to get there...or go to garibaldi for mariachi in the evening.  also behind the big church in the zocolo, there is lots of shopping in uruguay street.  check out all the old buildings and inside some of them (the government building especially) are very cool murals.  a real must see IMHO.  the problem for me was that they wanted some sort of ID.  i did not carry my passport with me, so i could not get into all of them.

on day two see chapultepec park.  it is a great place to relax, but spend most of the day at the antropology museum.  it is the greatest in the americas.  whatch the "voladores" and of course visit the castle  spend the evening "people watching" at the park and enjoy the greenery.

on day 3, there could be some options- xochimilco where is the waterways and canals are...  touristy, but cool to get into a boat.  tezpotlan (a bit to the south) is a quirky suburb that has all sorts of stuff from all over the world and some cool buildings.  it is very expensive to stay there compared to any place in mexico city proper.  coyoacan is where the rich people live and i think the freda kahlo museum and some sort of wax museum is there. the "ciudad universitaria" is also in the vicinity.  this is where the infamous protests during the mexican olympics were.  you have choices here....but really IMHO, THESE PLACES ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT of all the places you can visit...dispite there being a cool freda kahlo museum nearby.  i think it was her house?

for day 4.......Teotihuacan.  spend all day here.  take a bus to get there and back.  i think tuesdays? used to be free?  check that out.

day 5.... if you have not done enough shopping, do so downtown on your last day of leasurly stroling in many of the open markets and also walk down reforma to the zona rosa (the other rich part of town.  nothing traditional or exciting  to see in the zona rosa tho.

  if you like pyramids and ruins, there are others besides teotehuacan and the templo mayor.....tula and cholula are outside the city, but within reach via day trip.  tula is to the northwest and cholula is to the southwest....OR  visit the church at tepayec (see below)

Day 6???...if you have a half day before or after  you get there or leave... you can see "tepayec" the church where mary appeared to juan diego.  it is really a sight to see.  it is not an all day thing tho.  take the subway to get there.  during the day, it is safe.....it is always pretty clean and fast.

i assume that "day one" and "day 5" will be full days, and not 1/2 days spending much of it getting to and from your hotel or friend's house.  if you do NOT have 5 full days, you can skip the extra day shopping or extra day "pyramid hunting".  you would also abandon any hope of seeing cuernavaca or taxco which are nice.

Answer 3

5 days are really short time.  I live here 25 years, and i dont know all the parts of the city. But you can know beautiful places like Chapultepec Castle, Basilica de Guadalupe, Polanco, Zona Rosa, Zocalo, Pachuca, Teotihuacan Pyramids, Cuernavaca, etc.

Cancun. Americans, Canadians, Beaches, Warm, Clubs, beautfiul.

Good Luck.

Answer 4

in short...

no...

5 days is not enough but to scratch the surface.

It has various Museums, Palaces, Touristy places, Ruins, parks, Theaters, etc.

Answer 5

First take the Turibus ride to know the city and its lovely crowd streets around downtown and best zones.

day one.- Dowtown. zocalo and templo mayor museum (tenochtitlan ruins)

night one .- garibaldi (mariachi plaza)

day two.- chapultepec ( castle and antropology museum)

day 3.- Xochimilco and coyoacan

day 4.- Santa Fe mall

Day 5.- Teotihuacan and La villa

Day 6 relaxing walking on Reforma an Zona Rosa

Have a good trip

Answer 6

In 5 days you can visit quiet a bit but honestly in order to see the whole city it is very short time...Mexico City is one of the most interesting cities in the world and has hundreds of places to go...but you HAVE to check:

1.-Old Downtown or Centro Historico: check out the main square, the 300 year old buildings,the Templo Mayor and the Palace of Fine Arts, The National Palace

2.-Reforma Avenue and the Zona Rosa

3.-Check Chapultepec Park and Chapultepec Castle (The only real castle in North America)

4.-Go take a ride in the Subway (u will be amazed how clean, colorful and modern it is) About 25 U$ cents a ticket

5.-If possible go to Coyoacan (preferably on weekend in the afternoon) and also Ciudad Universitaria (University City)

6.-Take a ride in the Turibus (about US $10)

Have fun and take lots of pics