Mexico City

Once Tenochtitlán, city of the Mexica, built on a lake island whose causeways reached the mainland like the spokes of a wheel, before the Spanish drained the lake, piled a colonial capital on the rubble, and called it Ciudad de México. The sinking is still happening. The Centro Histórico tilts perceptibly, its baroque churches settling into the old lakebed.

CDMX rewards patience and penalises the itinerary. A morning in Coyoacán – cobbled streets, the blue house where Frida Kahlo was born and buried – feels nothing like a Sunday in Chapultepec, where families spread blankets, and the National Museum of Anthropology holds the ancient world in stone. Each colonia is its own village, each market its own Mexico.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours thread these worlds together. Follow the Aztec ceremonial precinct beneath the Zócalo's flagstones, where the Templo Mayor re-emerged after 400 years of burial. Wander Colonia Roma, rebuilt from the 1985 earthquake into a neighbourhood of cafés and bookshops. Plug in your earbuds and let la ciudad move at your pace.