Self-guided walking tour of Polanco in Mexico City - Mexico City Purple Travel Guide

Polanco is an affluent upscale neighborhood in Mexico City. It is famous for its luxury shopping and dining along Avenida Presidente Masaryk. We provide you a detailed itinerary with the best things to see and we show lots of photos so you know what you can expect.

Avenida Presidente Masaryk in Polanco is the most expensive street in all of Mexico. It gave Polanco the nickname Beverly Hills of Mexico.

Polanco is home to Pujol, which is often called the best restaurant in Mexico, and which was ranked 5th in The World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2022.

Most buildings that you see today were either built in the 1950s or after the devastating earthquake in 1985.

Here at Backpack and Snorkel Travel Guides, we typically promote self-guided walking tours.
But we realize that not everybody likes to walk by themselves in a foreign city. So, just in case that you rather go with ab guide: NO PROBLEM! Please see the free GuruWalk and paid Viator tours below.

Campos Elíseos

Start your day at the Auditorio metro station and then walk west along Paseo de la Reforma to Monumento a Simon Bolivar, where Campos Elíseos starts.

Campos Elíseos is a tree-lined divided street which was built to replicate the grandeur of the Champs Elysées in Paris. While not achieving this goal, it is still nice to stroll along the street and see the four glorietas, which are traffic roundabouts that were built in the 1930s and that surround fountains and benches.
Walk at least to the first glorieta near the InterContinental Presidente Mexico City hotel.

Parque Lincoln

Lincoln Park was the first park in Polanco. It is named after Abraham Lincoln in remembrance on his opposition to the Mexican-American War at a time before he became President.
The Lincoln statue was a gift from the Lyndon B. Johnson administration to the people of Mexico.

The park is well maintained and has walking paths that cross it.

Aviary in Parque Lincoln

One of the highlights of the park is the Aviary. Admission was 10 Pesos per person at the time of writing and you get to walk among dozens of colorful birds and even peacocks.

Artificial Lakes

The two mirror lakes are frequented by model boat builders, especially on the weekends, when they let their boats ride in the water. If you want, you can rent a model boat.

Clock Tower

The clock tower at the far western end has become a symbol of Polanco.

Avenida Presidente Masaryk

Avenida Presidente Masaryk is famous for its luxury shopping and dining. It is the most expensive street in all of Mexico and, together with Avenida Madero in Centro Historico, it has the highest rents in the Mexico City.

In 1936, the street was names after the first President of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. In 1999, the city of Prague donated a statue of President Masaryk to Mexico City and the statue was placed in the roundabout at the intersection of Avenida Presidente Masaryk and Arquímedes on Czechoslovak National Day.

The very walkable avenue that you experience today is the result of a complete overhaul that took place from 2014-2015.

Stroll along the street and enjoy the stores, restaurants, and beautiful modern architecture. There are benches where you can sit down and watch people and traffic and the occasional super-expensive cars.
Don’t worry, there are quite a few normally priced stores and restaurants.

Parque Uruguay

Parque Uruguay, also called Plaza Uruguay, is nothing you need to visit. The only reason it made our list is, because we were tired after a lot of walking and wanted to rest, relax, and eat some of our sandwiches away from all the traffic on Avenida Presidente Masaryk.
This park is forested and there were very few people. There is a central water feature and a monument of José Gervasio Artigas, a political leader and national hero of Uruguay.

We saw a few squirrels and lots of rats. The rats are shy and did not bother us, but if you have a phobia of rats, then you may not want to come here.

Our next destination, Museo Jumex, is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from Parque Uruguay. You need to decide if you want to walk or call an uber.

Museo Jumex

Museo Jumex is a private contemporary art museum that opened in 2013. Its collection encompasses about 2,800 works of art from artists like Andy Warhol, Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp, Olafur Eliasson, Nancy Rubins, etc.

At the time of writing, the museum was open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10am to 5pm, Saturdays until 7pm and admission was free.

Museo Soumaya

Founded by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú, who was the world’s richest person from 2010 – 2013, Museo Soumaya is one of the most complete art collections of Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, 19th- and 20th-century Mexico, European old masters, and modern western art. This includes works from e.g. Salvador Dalí, Diego Rivera, Auguste Rodin and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Yes, some works from these high-profile artists are exhibited, but the majority is from barely known artists. So, set your expectations.

The museum owns more than 66,000 works of art covering 30 centuries. The building itself is a work of art with its distinct shape. It is covered by 16,000 hexagonal aluminum tiles. On the interior, art is displayed on six distinctly shaped floors. The marble that the floors are covered with was imported from Greece and the aluminum for the exterior tiles was supplied by one of Carlos Slim’s companies. The shape of the building is achieved by an exoskeleton of 28 vertical curved steel columns and seven beams which were built by another one of Slim’s companies that normally manufactures offshore oil rigs.

The museum opened in 2011 and is named after Carlos Slim’s wife Soumaya Domit who passed away in 1999. Admission is free and the museum is open every day from 10:30am to 6:30pm.

This concludes your fourth full day in Mexico City.

Self-guided walking tours of Mexico City

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