Mexico City

The dogs to watch for in Parque México are the ones with no hair. They are Xoloitzcuintles, a breed with Aztec roots, trotting among the joggers in the oval Art Deco park at Condesa's centre. Mexico City is a sprawl of colonias with no single centre, best taken two at a time, on foot. Stay where we did, in Roma Norte, a flat grid of restored Porfirian mansions under the trees, now restaurants and coffee bars. Condesa, next door and wrapped round the park, is also a great place to stay. The Centro Histórico is for a day out, and Polanco, all wide avenues and international hotels, is for anyone who likes a city polished.

Fit as many of the city's taco stands inside you as you can. Each is a hole in the wall with its own speciality, and cheap enough that a day can go on walking from one to the next. El Tizoncito, in Condesa, claims to have invented tacos al pastor in 1966, which makes it as good a first stop as any. Coffee fills the gaps, at espresso bars that would pass in Brooklyn. Then a drink on the rooftop of the Condesa DF, looking over Parque España, and mezcal in the evening along Avenida Álvaro Obregón. Liking mezcal is not a requirement; it is fun anyway. There is fantastic fine dining too, and nice places in between: we ate great Mexican food, and broke off once for Italian, at Rosetta.

The Centro Histórico, 20 to 30 minutes away, has the Zócalo and Diego Rivera's murals inside the Palacio Nacional. We hired bikes and cycled to Chapultepec Castle; on Sunday mornings Paseo de la Reforma closes to cars for the same ride. Xochimilco, 45 minutes to an hour south by Uber, is for the canals: flat-bottomed trajineras, poled rather than rowed, with mariachi bands working the water between them. We went on a holiday weekend, with the canals full of families celebrating on the water, and they made the day. Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul in Coyoacán is compulsory, and so is booking: the timed tickets sell out.

We went in late October, as the rains were ending: they come from May, as short, heavy afternoon storms, at their worst from June to August. November to April is dry, with cold nights at 2,240 metres. We left wanting to come home, learn Spanish as fast as we could and move back for good, and for at least one of us the plan included a cafe table in Roma Norte and something exceptional being written at it. Real life had other plans.