Stunning Antiquities and Frida Kahlo’s Home Are Just Some of the Offerings That Have Bolstered Mexico City’s Fantastic Array of Museums

Nobody is entirely sure how many museums lie hidden in the sprawling megalopolis of Mexico City, but its government counts 171. They range from the high-profile National Museum of Anthropology, which holds the world’s largest collection of pre-­Columbian items in a superb Modernist structure, to such extravagantly specialized destinations as the Tequila and Mezcal Museum, the Antique Toy Museum and the Mexican Sugar Art Museum. The controversial army-run Museum of Narcotics showcases exhibits related to the Mexican drug war, including golden revolvers and a stuffed drug-sniffing dog; travelers must write in advance seeking rarely granted permission to visit the edgy collection.

In between the grand institutions and the whimsical oddities are dozens of small, intimate spaces that offer rich experiences for visitors. Many are cultural leftovers from pockets of Mexico City’s long history, which dates back some 700 years. Others are more recently preserved homes of artists, writers and celebrities, repositories for the personal belongings of towering creative figures.

In arm’s reach of family snapshots, a writer’s desk, a painter’s canvas, a hanging garment—even a cluttered kitchen sink—­observers starkly realize that these figures were human, despite their legendary status. The cumulative effect of visiting such varied museums, I realized while spending time in recent years in CDMX (shorthand for Ciudad de México), is to flesh out an eccentric and immersive narrative of the city’s complex and multilayered history. And its repertoire is only increasing: In the past two years, several quirky and compelling museums have opened their doors here.

Even residents can’t keep up. So last winter, I decided to explore Mexico City afresh through its newer museums (plus a few old favorites), to see what cultural wonders I might discover behind closed doors, fleeing the blizzards of New York for eternal spring. Perched 7,350 feet above sea level and surrounded by volcanoes, Mexico City is bathed in sunshine for most of the year, with daytime temperatures that usually stay above the 60s.

Its vast neighborhoods, home to some 22 million people, now claim the central Valley of Mexico, which was once an interlocking system of lakes and marshy islands that were ruled by the Aztec Empire. After the Spanish conquered the region in 1521, they set about draining the region’s waters and paving over its canals, so that today only one of the original lakes, Xochimilco, remains in the south. As a result, it can be difficult to picture the once-majestic Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, founded around 1325 on a central island with wooden pylons forming parts of its foundation.

At its peak, in the early 1500s, the city was home to at least 150,000 inhabitants, and three causeways connected a central area full of pyramids, temples and ritual sites, known as the Sacred Precinct. On a brilliantly sunny, cloudless morning, I headed over to the revered location, which now rests beneath Mexico City’s Historic Center, where the Spanish built their own colonial administrative heart as well as the ornate Metropolitan Cathedral, which still looms over the expansive Zócalo, or main plaza. But the idea that the city had vanished was overturned in 1978 when two electricians working near the Zócalo unearthed an eight-ton round stone carving of the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui, prompting further excavations.