Mexico, Guadalajara & Puerto Vallarta With Puerta Vallarta Extension

Crowds, cars, and cantinas. Twenty million residents clamoring all day long in the marketplaces and dancing all night long in the clubs. Few cities have the pure, tangible energy of Mexico City. Explore the past and present of this mammoth metropolis, built right on top of the capital of the Aztec empire. A licensed local guide will take you to the immense Plaza de la Constitución, the second largest square in the world after Moscow’s Red Square, whose unofficial name “el Zócalo” means “plinth” because of the never-completed statue in the center. Lining the square are the Cathedral and Palacio Nacional. The Cathedral was built between 1573 and 1813, and its architectural styles change, getting more and more ornate, as you go up. The Palacio Nacional still holds the president’s offices and a spectacular set of Diego Rivera murals — the artist depicted almost the full span of Mexican history, from the Toltecs and Aztecs to the Mexican Revolution, in amazing detail and striking, vivid colors. Nearby, the excavated Templo Mayor shows several layers of the chief Aztec temple. The Aztecs rebuilt their temples every 52 years, and there are at least seven separate structures (most of them now well below water level and not yet excavated) on this site.

Explore one of the top anthropology museums in the world. Arranged in over 100,000 square feet of display space are such artifacts as massive Olmec stone heads, the tomb and skeletal remains of an 8th-century Mayan ruler, a carved jaguar with a hollow back for the hearts of human sacrifices, and the famous Aztec Calendar Stone. At the museum entrance, the rain god Tlaloc stands guard over all these treasures. City residents claim that when this statue was moved here from its original home, severe rainstorms raged and ended a citywide drought.

Who needs hotdog stands when you’ve got canoes? On weekends this network of canals showcases not only a floating garden but also a floating market, with vendors in passing boats selling everything from tacos to flowers to mariachi music. On any day of the week you’ll see the ingenuity of the Aztecs, who sank woven reed rafts into the lake and anchored them to the bottom with live plants, creating a series of floating islands suitable for growing produce. Tour the innovative gardens on your own flower-bedecked boat.

See the rough woven cloak that miraculously generated a full-color image of the Virgin Mary. On December 9, 1531, resident Juan Diego, hurrying to find a priest for his dying uncle, saw a vision of the Virgin. She commanded him to build a basilica here and proved her divinity by curing his uncle and miraculously setting her own image into Juan Diego’s cloak. Since then she’s been busy performing miracles, ending plagues, and presiding as patron saint of the Americas. The basilica is now one of the most visited in Latin America.

The Aztecs named it “The Place Where Men Became Gods.” Get some divine inspiration yourself as your licensed local guide shows you this remarkable ancient town, so impressive that when the Aztecs found it in ruins, they assumed a race of giants had built it. At its height in the 7th century, the city had as many as 250,000 residents. The oldest structure, the Pyramid of the Sun, has a base as large as the Great Pyramid in Egypt. The long Avenue of the Dead leads to the smaller but more graceful Pyramid of the Moon. Clamber to the top for spectacular views.

Called the "Forge of National Independence" for its central role in freeing Mexico from the Spanish, San Miguel de Allende now enjoys much more peaceful pursuits. Since the 1950s artists from the United States and elsewhere around the world have flocked to the beautiful colonial town, creating a thriving arts community and vibrant tourist destination.

The perfect mix of old and new. Mexico's "second city" combines colonial charm with modern convenience, mariachi bands with shopping malls. Even the town's cathedral blends it original 16th-century architecture with new additions, including colorful, almost-new towers. (When you're dealing with a 500-year-old cathedral, 150 years old counts as "new"!) Explore these and other highlights with a licensed local guide.

Ready to bask? Puerto Vallarta will win your heart with its endless beaches, quaint town center, and lush jungle backdrop. It also has a bit of movie star allure -- it was the setting for "The Night of the Iguana" with Richard Burton in the 1960s, and after that become one of the resorts of choice for Hollywood's stars.