Alameda Central Park
The western half of this park was once El Quemadero, where the Inquisition publicly burned witches at the stake — now it is where Mexico City comes to sit in the sun.
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Founded on 11 January 1592 by Viceroy Luis de Velasco II, this is the oldest public park in the Americas. The ground was an Aztec marketplace before that, and an Inquisition burning site before it became a garden. After Mexican Independence in 1821, crowds celebrated here; in 1846, President Santa Anna had the fountains filled with alcohol.
What to look for
- The Benito Juárez Hemicycle, which marks the original western boundary of the 1592 park
- Five French-designed classical fountains — Neptune, Venus, Mercury, the Virgin, and more — each drawing on Greco-Roman mythology
- The Statue of Alexander von Humboldt, one of more than a dozen sculptures distributed along the paved paths
Take Metro Bellas Artes; the park runs between Juárez and Hidalgo avenues directly alongside the Palacio de Bellas Artes.
Alameda Central Park is one of 29 sights worth the detour in Mexico City, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Mexico City pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Mexico City
- Mexico City Metropolitan CathedralTwo hundred and forty years of construction, built on top of the Aztec sacred precinct — every generation of New Spain left something inside.
- National Museum of AnthropologyThe stone that defined how the world pictures the Aztec calendar is here — and 3.7 million people came to see it last year.
- Autódromo Hermanos RodríguezA 4.3 km ribbon of asphalt where two brothers gave their names — and their lives — to Mexican motorsport.
- Aztec Sun StoneA 24-tonne disc of olivine basalt that spent centuries buried under Mexico City's main square — then mounted on a cathedral wall — before anyone called it art.
- Palacio de Bellas ArtesStarted in 1904, halted by revolution and a sinking city, finished in 1934 — thirty years of delay show in every detail.
- University Olympic Stadium (Estadio Olímpico Universitario)This is where Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists to the sky in 1968 — one of sport's most charged political moments, in a stadium that held 83,700 people.