15 days from £1,537 per person
Mexico is a big country with a huge variety of landscapes, climates and traditions. There are deserts, mountains and jungles revealing the vestiges of the Aztec and Mayan empires: magnificent ruined pyramids and temples, as well as graceful colonial towns and a timeless indigenous life in the villages and markets. All this makes for an enticing holiday.
Suggested holiday itinerary (flexible)
Day 1 Fly from the UK to huge, exuberant Mexico City, arrive the same evening. There’s been settlement here since well before the Aztecs but the modern city was founded by the Spaniards and their influence is felt everywhere on a monumental scale.
Day 2 Excursion to the ancient ceremonial temple complex of Teotihuacán, ‘place of the Gods’, one of the most impressive archaeological zones in the world. The trip combines well with a visit to the shrine of the Basilica of Guadalupe.
Day 3 City tour including the remarkable Museum of Anthropology.
Days 4-6 Morning flight from Mexico City to Oaxaca in the southern highlands. The town has a rich indigenous and colonial background which is reflected in its arts, crafts and distinctive cuisine. It’s the kind of place best enjoyed by wandering around the terraced
streets stopping off at cafés and market stalls. Excursion to Monte Albán, ceremonial burial site of the Zapotecs, overlooking Oaxaca.
Day 7 Fly to Mérida, the colonial heartland of the Yucatán, via Mexico City
Day 8 Using Mérida as a base, visit the Mayan sites of Uxmal and Kabah.
Day 9 Drive to Chichén Itzá, a large and impressive Mayan city with two haunting sacrificial cenotes.
Days 10-13 Continue to Riviera Maya, by the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. Visit Tulum, ruined ceremonial site perched on an ocean-side cliff top and Xel-Ha, the world’s largest natural aquarium.
Day 14 Morning at leisure. Fly to the UK, arriving day 15.
how about?
- visiting the artists’ colonies at colonial Cuernavaca and the cobbled silver town of Taxco.
- a diversion to Puebla, a city with a remarkable colonial core not far from the capital. Stay at the ultramodern Hotel Purificadora, a work of art in itself, showing how the old blends with the new in Mexico. Travel on to Tlaxcala, a rosy town allied to Spain during the war of Independence, thereafter sidetracked and unspoilt.
|  Chichén Itzá
 Oaxaca
 Tulum, Mayan Riviera
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