Centro Histórico is one of my favorite areas in the city, but all those people, noise and pollution can sure be exhausting. If you need a break away from all of this, the café inside the Franz Mayer Museum is the place to go. The café itself is nothing special, just a regular café where the coffee is good but the food – baguettes and salads – not quite. The thing that makes it special is its location.

Franz Mayer Museum is situated in a hospital that was built in the 16th century. Such an old building has seen, of course, all the changes that have been taking place in the city since then. When this place was built, the area where it is standing used to be the outskirts of the city, and now… well, not really. Right after the independence of Mexico from the Spanish Empire, the monks that had been in charge of the hospital were expelled, and during the Mexican Revolution this building was used as a military quarter.

Eventually, in 1986, the museum was opened and since then we have this beautiful little paradise in the middle of the busy, crowded and sometimes aggressive Centro Histórico.