5 Days in Mexico City
Design and Art Inspiration / Overview
Download our Mexico City 5 Day Guide
Two places that have been on our travel wish list are Mexico City and Japan. Since 2022 many of you have been feeding us tips and recommendations for both, and we were excited to finally give ourselves an adventure (it's been more than a few years since we've taken a vacation of more than 2 days together!!). Given its proximity, we closed shop and chose CDMX.
In 5 days, we covered a lot of ground, but also only touched the surface. We loved the urban, artistic atmosphere and the abundance of independent design. The culture in Mexico City is warm, historic, inventive, colorful, adventurous and beautiful.
It was incredibly soul-filling to visit art galleries, design shops, Made in Mexico fashion, coffee bars, flavorful and vibrant cafes and restaurants, lounge bars, a jazz bar, Luis Barragán icons, local green markets, artisanal markets, and shops specializing in authentic and refined craft and discoveries made by walking from colonia to colonia.
We stayed in a classic 1930’s Casona reimagined by our friend Stellah, an interior designer and ceramicist. She renovated it as an event space/shoot location, gallery, artist studio, and as her home in the heart of La Roma, Mexico City. Stellah has restored this home paying homage to the original and many different floor tiles throughout the house, opening up walls and creating a fluid expression of life and creativity from room to room. The open space is a showroom for her aesthetics, every considered corner of well-chosen decor, and being surrounded by her multi-dimensional craft: ceramics, product design and her amazing skills in the kitchen. This was a local experience that added warmth and familiarity to our travel experience.
We had great timing the week we stayed in Mexico City, getting to witness a kiln unloading and learning more about Stellah’s ceramic practice. We subsequently drank many a coffee and a mezcal or two (a Stellah collab with a farm in Oaxaca) out of her new ceramic cups.
Day 1 Juárez
Day 2 Hipódromo, Polanco & Condesa
Day 3 Roma Norte
Day 4 Pedregal & Chapultepec
Day 5 Roma Sur
Teaser video here:
Walk as much as you can! The flow of the streets is tangible! A few colonias have a center path lush with vegetation and it was charming to stroll! We also found some truly special shops, galleries and coffee bars on side streets that we would have missed in a car. Uber was great for airport and slightly longer distances.
Museums and outside the city recommendations abound that weren’t possible this trip, and with Zsona Maco this week which we are missing, we’ll be happy to experience those next time. Always more to see! And for sure there will be a next time!
Grab our Mexico City 5 Day Guide for neighborhood specific shopping lists for collectible design and fashion, places we went for art and culture, the delicious food, coffee bars and lounges we experienced, and a few historical and hidden discoveries.
CDMX was magic!
~ Bonnie & Jeffrey
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