Mexico City Streets: La Roma

Colonia Roma is one of Mexico City's most layered and liveable neighbourhoods, shaped by earthquake squatters, surrealist painters, and circus-owning property developers. On this walking tour, you'll trace how Roma evolved from a turn-of-the-century suburb for the nouveau riche into one of the city's most creative and contested neighbourhoods. You'll also hear about the remarkable women, exiles, and activists who made it their home.

The tour starts at Plaza Luis Cabrera on Zacatecas Street, where you'll learn how the neighbourhood was designed with wide, tree-lined boulevards to attract wealthy residents fleeing the chaos of the Centro Histórico. From there, you'll head along Avenida Álvaro Obregón, Roma's main drag, passing El Moro, one of the city's oldest churrerías, still serving churros and hot chocolate since the 1930s.

Deeper into the neighbourhood, you'll enter the old plaza of La Romita, a pre-colonial indigenous town that fiercely resisted being absorbed into the new suburb. You'll pass the Iglesia de la Sagrada Familia, whose construction was interrupted by the Mexican Revolution, and the Casa del Libro, a neoclassical mansion now owned by UNAM. The tour ends at Plaza Río de Janeiro, surrounded by some of Roma's finest architecture, including the Casa de las Brujas – a red-brick building whose peaked roofs and rumoured resident witch made it neighbourhood legend.

On this 45-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Admire Casa Guanajuato, one of only eight buildings in Mexico City officially designated as art nouveau
• Hear how William S. Burroughs fatally shot his wife during a drunken William Tell act in a Roma bar
• Visit Santa María de la Natividad de Aztacalco, said to be the oldest Catholic church built in the Americas
• Learn how the 1985 earthquake left entire buildings abandoned, and how tenants squatted and refused to leave for decades
• See a giant street mural by Italian muralist ERICAILCANE, known for his detailed anthropomorphic animals
• Explore Jardin Pushkin, named after Russia's greatest poet following a Soviet donation in the 1950s

Whether you finish with a lemon berlinesa at Rosetta or a cocktail at Bar Las Brujas, Roma will leave its mark.