The entrance to the apartment building of our Airbnb in the Condesa neighborhood
In the middle of the tropical summer, an escape from Mexico’s hot and humid coastal zone is highly recommended. No matter how nice the beaches are, there are only so many days of near 100% humidity that a person can take before spiraling into insanity. Luckily for us, a large part of inland Mexico is located on a high plateau – summer daytime temperatures are in the mid to upper 70s (around 25C) with overnight lows in the 50s (around 15C).
Many of the streets in Condesa and Roma neighborhoods are tree-lined and park-like, like this one outside a delicious breakfast restaurant, Que Sería De Mí
We really only knew two things about Mexico City. First, it’s located in this high plateau at an elevation of 7000 feet (2250m), so it wouldn’t be as hot and sticky as the coast. And second, it’s one of the largest cities in the world with a population over 20 million folks. We imagined a super-crowded, loud, dry and dusty place, but at least it wouldn’t be hot.
On the weekend there were several dog adoption booths next to the large off leash dog park in Parque Mexico in the center of La Condesa
Like many things we’ve found while traveling, the reality turned out to be very different from our expectations. While the population of the city is huge, the two central neighborhoods where we spent most of our time were quiet – cars drove through the streets slowly, while a typical afternoon would find a few pedestrians making their way down the sidewalk. Instead of being dry and dusty, Mexico City is green and full of parks. Many of the larger streets have tree-lined medians with sidewalks in the middle for bikers and walkers.
One of 2 organs in the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral
We rented a couple of different apartments through Airbnb and explored the city for ten days. We’ll be back, for sure.
Sightseeing makes us very hungry- good thing we are in Mexico City and we don’t even need to go a block before finding some delicious tacos
