Departures Sleep


Hotel Carlota: Mexico City hosts trusted international chains but with such a choice of colorful, homegrown hotels, it’s a shame to fall for the lure of the franchises. Current darling of the design scene, Hotel Carlota is a modernist concrete palace of eclectic conceptual art and antiques, centered around a courtyard pool. None of the 36 guestrooms are alike. hotelcarlota.com.mx


La Palomilla: La Palomilla, is a new seven-room B&B in a former 1930s house on a leafy alleyway in hipster Roma Norte. Renovated by the owner’s artist friends, expect colorful Oaxacan floor tiles, a Technicolor Metepec tree of life on the mini roof terrace, and Ojos de Dioses (Pacific Coast


evil eye charms) guarding walls. Most rooms are en suite, and the generous, refined Mexican breakfasts — set around a communal table in the airy ground floor atrium — really get the day off to a fresh start. lapalomillabnb.com


Downtown Beds: Proof that cheap is also capable of being cheerful, Downtown Beds is a Centro Histórico hostel set in the servants’ quarters of a 17th-century palace. Rooms come as both dorms and private, there’s a buzzy bar, hammocks, bicycles to borrow and, if you want to step it up a notch, the adjoining palace is a hotel that comes complete with a sunny pool terrace. The website promises this is a “one-stop shop for travelers looking for fun, culture and quality”. downtownbeds.com


See


The Zócalo: One of the world’s biggest squares is flanked by the Palacio Nacional, the Templo Mayor, and the vast, classical-baroque Metropolitan Cathedral. The former is the place to make at least a hit-and-run viewing of Diego Rivera’s murals depicting the human history of Mexico, while the nearby Museo Mural Diego Rivera in neighboring Centro Histórico is a must-visit. historia.palacionacional.info museomuraldiegorivera.bellasartes.gob.mx


Coyoacán and San Ángel: The former "villages" of Coyoacán and San Ángel are now central barrios with tree-lined, cobbled avenues of colonial-era churches, monasteries, pavement cafés and souvenir markets. The beautiful, cobalt blue-painted Frida Kahlo museum is set in the anarchic artist’s long-time home with Diego Rivera. The nearby Trotsky museum is an eye-opener, with assassination-attempt bullet-holes in the bedroom, and myriad artifacts from the Russian revolutionary’s time in exile here. museofridakahlo.org.mx museocasadeleontrotsky.blogspot.mx


Clockwise from top: Quesadillas; Contramar Restaurant, Roma Norte; View of the Zocalo from the Town Hall; Medicine Man


108 | asta.org


Chapultepec: The parkland home of the Museo Nacional de Antropología and the Museo de Arte Moderno, Chapultepec is a superb place to relax. The riches in the former aren’t navigable in one visit alone, but cherry-picking makes a good introduction to Mexico’s complex chronology of civilizations. And it’s a good place to crib up if planning a visit to the pyramids of Mesoamerica’s first great and powerful state, Teotihuacán, the city’s most popular archaeological excursion, 50km to the northeast. Aztec treasures, meanwhile include a sunstone unearthed beneath the Zócalo in 1790. museoartemoderno.com


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