There’s more to Mexico City than tequila and burritos… the city’s arts scene reflects its vibrant cultural heritage.

 

The historic centre of Mexico City has an unmistakable hum. It’s a combination of off-tune organ-grinders, drums and bells of scantily feathered Aztec dancers, wailing of street vendors and Latino pop pumping from speakers placed at the entrance to shops. This soundscape is various epochs of Mexican history singing in raucous unison, just as the volcanic stone of the imposing Spanish colonial buildings of the Zócalo (the gigantic main square) once made up the structures of the thriving Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, on whose foundations Mexico City was built.

With a population of over 20 million, this is one of the world’s largest cities. But once through the cedar swinging doors of any one of the countless cantinas in the Centro, you could just as easily be in a small village. Sip tequila amid faded portraits of revolutionary heroes and listen...