Museo Frida Kahlo (Casa Azul)

The Casa Azul (Blue House) is where Frida Kahlo was born, lived, painted, suffered, and died — a cobalt-blue colonial house in Coyoacán that has been preserved as a museum since 1958 and has become the most visited museum in Mexico City. The house is small by museum standards but dense with Kahlo's presence: her wheelchair sits in front of her easel, her medicines and corsets are displayed in her bedroom, and the gardens she tended are still planted with the cacti and tropical flowers that appear in her paintings.

Kahlo shared the house with Diego Rivera, and their turbulent relationship — they married, divorced, and remarried — is documented throughout. Rivera's collection of pre-Hispanic sculptures fills the garden and studio, and the kitchen is preserved with the couple's pottery, utensils, and the names 'Diego' and 'Frida' spelled out in miniature ceramic cups on the wall. The domestic intimacy of the museum — this is where they ate, argued, painted, and received visitors from Trotsky to André Breton — makes it a more personal experience than any formal gallery could provide.

The museum is perpetually crowded, and advance online booking is essential — walk-up visitors are regularly turned away, especially on weekends. The Coyoacán neighbourhood itself is worth the trip: a colonial-era village that has been absorbed by the city but retains its cobblestone streets, plazas, and the atmosphere of a small town. The Coyoacán market, a few blocks from the museum, serves some of the best tostadas in the city.