Chapultepec Castle sits 2,325 metres above Mexico City on a hill the Aztecs considered sacred, the home of Tlaloc, god of rain.

Viceroys used it as a hunting lodge. Teenage cadets died defending it against U.S. troops in 1847. An Austrian archduke named Maximilian, briefly installed as Mexico's emperor by Napoleon III, filled it with European furniture and summoned architects from Austria, Belgium, and France to give it a suitably regal air, before he was captured and shot.

It became the presidential residence until a president named Cárdenas declared it too pompous and turned it into a museum. It now houses murals by Siqueiros and Orozco, including one depicting cadet Juan Escutia falling wrapped in the national flag.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the castle's layered past, from Aztec sacred hill to imperial folly to national monument, weaving it into the broader story of a country perpetually contested and remade.