distrito federal

Experience the way of life in the largest city in the world. Huge pyramids, sumptuous Baroque churches, snow-covered Popo¬caté¬petl, and the floating gardens of Xochimilco. This city is waiting for you, and you now immerse yourself into the multi-million metropolis. Enjoy a snapshot of Mexico.

You now visit the famous Museo Nacional de Antropología. In front of the museum entrance, the 165-ton monolith of Tlaloc, the rain god, is waiting for us. When this statue was transported from the east of the high valley to Mexico City, it was dry season, but pouring with rain – a protest of the god? Let the atmosphere inspire you and follow the traces of the old peoples. After visiting the museum, you go to the Centro Histórico. Lean back and enjoy the colorful bustling of markets and men, which is so fascinating for us. Glamour and misery are next to each other here – the quite poor old town and chic shopping districts: Spanish, French, romantically modern. Walk to one of the many narrow by-streets with their craft shops, where shoemakers dominate entire blocks.

The basilica of Guadalupe is likewise worth a visit. On the Plaza de las Américas, the old and the new basilica are found side by side at the sanctuary of Mexico. The new basilica, an oval building, can accommodate 20,000 people and is the most important pilgrimage place in Latin America. It is dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe, one of the most important patrons of Mexico. On December 12, many thousand believers make their pilgrimage to the church, covering the way across the place to the church door on bended knees – a sign of devotion and gratitude. The virgin’s wrap can be seen in the new basilica.

After this spiritual highlight of Mexico, a visit of Teotihuacán is an obvious sequel. When you come to the plateau, the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon emerge like natural hills among the mountains surrounding the area. The UN included Teotihuacán into the list of Cultural World Heritage Sites in 1988. Built between 250 BC and 700 AD, it was the first city in the “New World” and numbered about 125,000 to 250,000 people in 2,300 dwelling complexes in its heyday. Teotihuacán had reached its religious, cultural and economic zenith already between 500 and 800 AD. The influence of the builders of Teotihuacán extended as far as Guatemala. It was a flourishing trade center and a religious center. The city was burnt down for reasons that scholars have been unable to elucidate so far. When the Aztecs, raiding the region around Lake Texcoco, discovered the settlement, it had been a ghost town for several centuries already. Experts think that the people who built the town had come from the North 2000 years ago. Their civilization was based on the veneration of the rain god.