What this section covers. Green space in a city of twenty million — of which there is far more than its reputation suggests, at three different scales.
Inside the city. The Bosque de Chapultepec is the largest urban park in Latin America and fills a day on its own: castle, lake, free zoo, museums. Parque México and Avenida Ámsterdam, in the Condesa, trace the oval of a 1920s racecourse and are where the neighbourhood runs. The Viveros de Coyoacán, a national tree nursery turned park, is where the rest of the city runs.
On the edge of it. Los Dinamos, along the last river in the city still flowing in the open; the Desierto de los Leones, Mexico's first national park, with a seventeenth-century monastery in pine forest; and the slopes of the Ajusco, the highest point in the city at close to 4,000 metres.
On the water. Xochimilco, the last fragment of the lake system the Mexica built on, with chinampas still farmed and a World Heritage listing since 1987.
Practical notes. Public parks are free and open early, often from 06:00 — the best hour, before the midday heat and the haze. Mountain parks are for the dry season and early starts. From June to September it rains almost every afternoon. At this altitude the sun burns even when the air is cool: hat, sunscreen, water.
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