Mexico: México – Teotihuacan
🏛️ Teotihuacan — The Place Where the Gods Were Created
Located fewer than 30 miles (50 kilometres) from Mexico City, Teotihuacan was, at its peak between roughly 100 BC and AD 650, one of the largest cities anywhere on the planet. Let that sink in for a moment. While Londoners were still painting themselves blue and arguing about whose turn it was to fight the Romans, this place had a functioning metropolis of around a hundred thousand people, spread across 8 square miles (21 square kilometres) of carefully planned streets, plazas, and monumental pyramids. It makes you feel rather inadequate, frankly.
The city flourished for the best part of seven centuries before going into a period of decline around AD 650 — roughly 1,400 years ago. A significant fire caused considerable damage, and the whole place gradually wound down in the way that great civilisations tend to do when nobody’s paying attention. But here’s the thing: Teotihuacan was never truly “lost” in the dramatic Indiana Jones sense. The Aztecs, who turned up several centuries later around the 14th century AD and went on to build their own rather impressive empire, knew the site perfectly well and made regular pilgrimages there. They clearly felt the same mix of awe and bafflement that we did standing at the base of the Pyramid of the Sun.
What the original inhabitants actually called their city remains completely unknown. The name Teotihuacan was given to it by the Aztecs, and it means “the place where the gods were created.” The Aztecs believed the site was where the gods had gathered to create the sun and the moon — which is, you have to admit, a considerably grander origin story than “bloke named it after his dog.” UNESCO has since recognised Teotihuacan as a site of significant archaeological and cultural importance, which presumably comes with a nice certificate.
🛑 A Pit Stop
One of the great disadvantages of booking a tour is that you surrender all control of your day to a stranger with a microphone. You are, essentially, a victim of circumstance. In Mexico, this almost always means a compulsory detour to a gift shop at some point. It is as inevitable as rain at a British bank holiday barbecue.
On our visit to Teotihuacan, this duly happened — but, and I say this with some reluctance, it actually turned out to be rather good.
We were first given a short presentation on the remarkable versatility of the agave plant. Most of us know agave primarily as the thing that gives us tequila and mezcal, which is really all you need to know about a plant as far as I’m concerned. But it turns out agave has been used for thousands of years across Mesoamerica for a staggering variety of purposes — making paper, weaving textiles, and even fashioning needles and thread from its fibres. The ancient Mexicans had been getting the most out of this spiky desert plant long before anyone thought to ferment it into something drinkable. This part was, I’ll grudgingly admit, genuinely interesting.
Next up was a demonstration of craftwork made from obsidian. For anyone not familiar with obsidian — and before this trip, I confess I had only the vaguest idea — it is a dark, glassy, volcanic rock formed when lava cools extremely rapidly, trapping the material before it has time to crystallise. The result is a smooth, jet-black, almost mirror-like stone that has been prized since prehistoric times for its razor-sharp edges. It was used for blades, mirrors, and decorative objects throughout Mesoamerica. For Game of Thrones fans, this is what they referred to as Dragonglass — and as we all know, it’s absolutely essential if you ever find yourself unexpectedly confronted by a White Walker.
Finally — and here’s where the whole operation revealed its true genius — we were given a tasting of several liqueurs and mezcals. It was still fairly early in the morning. Our stomachs were largely empty. The alcohol went straight to our heads with the efficiency of a well-aimed dart. This was, of course, entirely deliberate. We were then released into the gift shop with our defences thoroughly dismantled by strong spirits and a warm glow of goodwill towards all mankind. Whatever those crafty Mexicans were selling, we were buying. Full marks for the strategy, genuinely.
🏛️ Teotihuacan — What You See Is Only Half the Story
The ruins of Teotihuacan are vast. Genuinely, properly vast. And here’s the slightly humbling part — what you can actually see above ground is only a fraction of what’s there. A significant portion of this enormous complex remains unexcavated, sitting quietly underground, waiting for someone with better funding and more patience than me to go and have a proper look.
The city had been known about for centuries, of course. You can’t exactly hide something this size. But it wasn’t until the 1800s that any serious excavation work got underway. Before that, the site had been slowly swallowed up by soil and vegetation over the course of more than a thousand years, to the point where the great pyramids no longer looked like pyramids at all. They looked like hills. Entirely ordinary hills. Which, when you think about it, is both a remarkable feat of nature and a fairly spectacular failure of observation on someone’s part. It took until the 1960s and 1970s for a full, systematic exploration of the site to take place — meaning that for most of human history, one of the greatest cities ever built was essentially hiding in plain sight.
🔍 Peeling Back the Layers
The first part of our tour took us inside one of the smaller pyramids, which was considerably more interesting than it sounds. Now, if you’re expecting something along the lines of the Egyptian pyramids — grand internal chambers, long spooky corridors, the lingering possibility of a curse — you’ll need to recalibrate your expectations fairly sharply.
These pyramids work quite differently. Rather than being hollow structures filled with rooms, they were built solid. And here’s the clever bit: as the centuries passed, rather than knocking the old pyramid down and starting again — which, frankly, sounds exhausting — the builders simply constructed a new, larger pyramid directly over the top of the existing one. Then, when that one started looking a bit dated, they did it again. And again. Some of the pyramids at Teotihuacan are seven or eight layers deep, each one encasing the last like a set of particularly ambitious Russian dolls.
During the excavations of the 1960s and 70s, archaeologists essentially peeled back some of these outer layers — like unwrapping a very old, very heavy onion — to reveal the earlier structures buried inside. We were able to walk through sections of these inner pyramids and see earlier, smaller incarnations of the same building, one nested inside the other. As an added bonus, the burial process had done an excellent job of preserving some of the original painted murals that decorated the interior walls. Sealed away from the air and light for over a millennium, the colours were still surprisingly vivid. It was, if I’m being honest, genuinely extraordinary — and I don’t say that lightly, because I am a man who finds most things mildly disappointing.
🌞 The Big Climb — Temples of the Moon and Sun
The main attractions at Teotihuacan are the two largest pyramids — the Temple of the Moon and the Temple of the Sun. Unlike our earlier visit to Chichen Itza, the great Mayan city on the Yucatán Peninsula where they’ve roped everything off and won’t let you within touching distance of anything interesting, here they actually let you climb the things. Proper climbing. Up the outside. Like adults.
We decided, sensibly, to start with the shorter of the two — the Temple of the Moon, which stands at 43 metres (150 feet). It’s been at the northern end of the Avenue of the Dead for the best part of two thousand years, and you can’t climb all the way to the top, but there is a platform partway up that offers perfectly respectable views and is reached via a set of stairs that can only be described as optimistically steep.
👟 The Ascent — Not for the Faint-Hearted
Now, I should mention at this point that I am six feet tall and possess what a shoe shop assistant once diplomatically referred to as “generous feet.” The steps at Teotihuacan were not built with people like me in mind. They are narrow, they are steep, and they are made of ancient stone that has had two millennia to become thoroughly unforgiving. Each step requires a sort of sideways, apologetic shuffle that does absolutely nothing for your dignity.
There is a plastic-coated rope running up the middle of the stairs, presumably for steadying oneself. It is, however, sized for the average Mexican, which means that for anyone significantly over six feet, it functions less as a safety aid and more as a gentle suggestion. You grab it anyway, obviously, because the alternative is tumbling back down a two-thousand-year-old pyramid in front of a crowd of tourists, and that is not the legacy anyone wants.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that Teotihuacan sits at an altitude of around 2,300 metres (7,500 feet) above sea level. This is the kind of thing that sounds like a minor detail until you’re halfway up a steep pyramid and your heart is doing its level best to exit your chest through your ribcage. Anyone with vertigo should probably give this one a miss and enjoy the view from the bottom with a cold drink and a clear conscience.
😌 The View — Worth Every Wheeze
Having said all that, the view from the top of the steps is genuinely worth the effort. Standing on the platform of the Temple of the Moon, you can look directly down the entire length of the Avenue of the Dead — a grand ceremonial boulevard stretching for more than two kilometres — with the enormous bulk of the Temple of the Sun dominating the far end. It’s one of those views that makes you momentarily forget that your legs have turned to jelly and your shirt is doing things it shouldn’t.
Equally enjoyable, if I’m being completely honest, was standing at the top looking composed and unhurried while watching younger, visibly fitter people with considerably shorter legs arrive at the platform gasping, dripping, and looking mildly betrayed by their own bodies. After a certain age, you take your victories where you can find them.
☀️ The Pyramid of the Sun — The Main Event
The Temple of the Moon, impressive as it is, turns out to be merely the warm-up act. The real headline attraction is the Pyramid of the Sun, and it does not disappoint — which, as I may have mentioned, is not something I say often.
At roughly 210 feet tall, the Pyramid of the Sun is one of the largest pyramids on the planet. It stands at about half the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which sounds like damning it with faint praise until you actually stand next to it and realise that half the height of Giza is still absolutely enormous. To put it in some sort of context, the Pyramid of the Sun has a base that is broadly comparable in size to the Great Pyramid itself — it just doesn’t go up quite as far. The ancient Egyptians, it seems, were more interested in height. The Teotihuacanos, meanwhile, were going for sheer bulk. Different priorities, equally impressive results.
In 1971, archaeologists discovered a previously unknown tunnel, roughly 320 feet long, running beneath the pyramid and leading to a natural cave sitting directly under the apex. Nobody had known it was there. It is thought the cave may have had significant religious importance — possibly even connected to the origins of the city itself — which raises the rather unsettling thought that the whole pyramid might have been built specifically to sit on top of it.
🚶 The Avenue of the Dead
Getting from the Temple of the Moon to the Temple of the Sun involves a short walk along the grandly named Avenue of the Dead — a broad, ceremonial boulevard flanked on both sides by temples and platforms stretching for more than a mile. The Aztecs gave it that rather gloomy name because they believed the platforms lining the route were tombs. They weren’t, as it turned out, but you can see how they got there. It’s an imposing stretch of road that makes you feel simultaneously very small and thoroughly underdressed. Along the way there are more wall paintings to stop and peer at, which provides a convenient excuse to catch your breath before what comes next.
😮💨 248 Steps — Every Single One of Them
There are 248 steps to the summit of the Pyramid of the Sun. Two hundred and forty-eight. In the Mexican heat. On a stomach that, as previously established, had already been ambushed by mezcal earlier that morning. It is, to use the technical term, quite a haul.
In fairness, the pyramid is built with several broad flat terraces along the way, which allow you to stop, pretend you’re admiring the view, and quietly wonder whether your knees will ever forgive you. We were grateful for every single one of them.
But once you haul yourself up to the apex and your heart rate returns to something approaching normal, you are rewarded with one of the finest views we encountered on the entire trip. The whole of the Teotihuacan complex spreads out below you — the Temple of the Moon sitting serenely to the north, the Avenue of the Dead stretching away into the distance, the surrounding countryside rolling out towards hills on every horizon. It is the sort of view that makes the 248 steps feel, almost, worth it.
Almost.
In Summary …
So, in summary, if you are in Mexico City you should take the time to do a day trip out to pre-Columbian ruins at Teotihuacan. The site is UNESCO listed and is one of the best cultural sites in Mexico.
It can be a full day trip, especially if you visit places along the way (our tour included short visits to the artisan shop and the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe) and have lunch at a restaurant.
Planning your trip
📍 Location
Carretera Ecatepec–Pirámides, Km 22 + 600, Municipio de Teotihuacán, C.P. 55800, State of Mexico, Mexico. The site is situated approximately 48–50 kilometres north-east of Mexico City.
🚌 How to Get There
By bus: The most economical option is to take a bus from Mexico City’s Terminal Central del Norte (North Bus Terminal). Autobuses Teotihuacán operates regular services directly to the archaeological site. Journey time is approximately one hour.
By car: From Mexico City, take Federal Highway 85D towards Pachuca and follow the signs for the zona arqueológica. The journey takes approximately one to one and a half hours depending on traffic. Paid on-site parking is available at a cost of approximately 50–100 Mexican pesos.
By guided tour: Numerous operators offer day trips from Mexico City, including transport, a guide and sometimes additional stops such as the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
🌐 Website
teotihuacan.inah.gob.mx
📞 Contact Telephone Number
+52 (594) 956 0276
The site is managed by INAH. General enquiries can be directed through the INAH contact portal at inah.gob.mx.
🎟️ Entry Fees
The standard entrance fee is 100 Mexican pesos per person (approximately £4–5 / US$5–6, subject to exchange rate fluctuation). This ticket covers access to the main archaeological zone, the Museum of Teotihuacan Culture and the Beatriz de la Fuente Museum of Teotihuacan Murals. Entry is free for Mexican citizens and residents on Sundays. Children under 13 enter free of charge. Parking is charged separately at approximately 50–100 Mexican pesos. Cash payment is recommended, though some gates may accept cards.
🕗 Opening Times
The archaeological site is open daily, year-round, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Last admission is at approximately 3:00–4:30 pm. The Museum of Teotihuacan Culture is open daily from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm. The Museum of Teotihuacan Murals is open Tuesday to Sunday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
The best time to visit Mexico City
🌸 Spring – Dry Season (March to May)
Spring is widely regarded as the finest time to visit Mexico City. The rainy season has not yet arrived, temperatures are pleasantly warm, and the city buzzes with cultural energy. Daytime highs hover between 22°C and 26°C, with cool evenings that rarely dip below 10°C. Skies are predominantly clear, making it ideal for exploring open-air sites such as Teotihuacán, the Zócalo, and Chapultepec Park.
March and April bring Semana Santa (Holy Week), one of Mexico’s most important religious observances, when the city fills with processions and festivities. Crowds are noticeable but not overwhelming outside of the Easter weekend peak. May sees temperatures climbing and the humidity building ahead of the summer rains — visit early in the month for the best of the season.
What to pack: Lightweight layers, a light jacket for evenings, breathable walking shoes, sunscreen, sunglasses, and a reusable water bottle. A compact umbrella is useful from late April.
⛈️ Summer – Wet Season (June to August)
Summer brings the rainy season, though this need not be a deterrent. Rain typically falls in concentrated afternoon and evening downpours lasting one to two hours, leaving mornings largely clear and pleasant. Temperatures remain mild — generally 18°C to 24°C — and the city’s parks and surrounding valleys turn a vivid green. Hotel rates are often lower, and the city’s cultural calendar remains full, with exhibitions, concerts, and street festivals running throughout the season.
The main inconvenience is the afternoon rain, which can cause traffic disruption and occasional flooding in low-lying areas. Planning outdoor activities for the morning is the sensible approach. July and August also coincide with school holidays in Mexico, so family-orientated attractions tend to be busier.
What to pack: A compact waterproof jacket or poncho, quick-dry clothing, waterproof footwear or sandals, light layers, insect repellent, and a small daypack with a dry bag for electronics.
🍂 Autumn – Transition Season (September to November)
Autumn is one of the most atmospheric and culturally rewarding times to visit. September marks the beginning of the end of the rainy season, with rainfall gradually tapering through October and drying considerably by November. Temperatures settle between 15°C and 22°C — cooler than summer but still comfortable during the day.
November is the undoubted highlight of the autumn season. Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), celebrated on 1 and 2 November, transforms Mexico City into a spectacle of marigold-draped altars, candlelit processions, and vibrant public gatherings. The Zócalo and Mixquic are especially dramatic. Tourist numbers are rising but the city retains a more relaxed atmosphere compared with peak winter months.
What to pack: A warm layer or light wool jumper, a waterproof jacket for early September, comfortable walking shoes, festival-appropriate clothing for Día de Muertos, and a camera or smartphone with ample storage.
❄️ Winter – Dry Season (December to February)
Winter is the driest period in Mexico City and brings some of the clearest skies of the year, making it excellent for photography and open-air excursions. Daytime temperatures range from around 18°C to 20°C, though cold fronts known as nortes can push overnight temperatures close to or below 5°C, particularly in January and February.
December is the busiest and most festive month, centred on Las Posadas (16–24 December), Christmas, and New Year. The city is richly decorated, markets are in full swing, and the atmosphere is convivial. January and February are considerably quieter, representing something of a hidden gem — dry, clear, and calm, without the holiday crowds.
What to pack: A medium-weight coat or insulated jacket, warm layers for evenings and early mornings, a scarf, comfortable smart-casual clothing for festive events, and good walking shoes or boots.
📊 Season at a Glance
✅ Overall Best Time to Visit
The optimum time to visit Mexico City is from late October through to early May, taking in the tail end of autumn and the full dry season. Within that window, November stands out for its extraordinary cultural richness — Día de Muertos is a once-in-a-lifetime experience — whilst March and April offer the finest combination of weather, manageable crowds, and vibrant street life. Travellers seeking quieter streets and crisp clear skies will find January and February particularly rewarding. Mexico City rewards visits at almost any time of year given its altitude, which moderates temperatures year-round, but avoiding the peak of the wet season in June and July will make outdoor exploration considerably more enjoyable.