Mexico City for The Curious Wanderers: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Stalls from every state under one roof; look for the Oaxacan barro negro and the Michoacán copper before the stallholders start packing.

Adamo Boari's 1907 post office, still working, with a bronze double staircase that seems to belong to a different building; post something.

Stone walls, low lamps and a kitchen that puts ant larvae and maguey worms on the plate without ceremony; the mezcal list is the other menu.

The Aztec twin temple under the colonial square, found when an electrician's shovel hit the Coyolxauhqui stone in 1978; the walkways let you look down.

Paint a carved figure under the direction of a maker from the museum's collection, then see the originals upstairs.

A modern fonda where you build a plate from the day's guisados, with tortillas pressed from heirloom corn.

The Sunday flea market: 1950s lucha masks, hand-lettered shop signs and vendors who will tell you every object's story.

Rows of Santa Muerte figures, black candles, dried hummingbirds and a limpia with a sprig of rue for a few pesos; the strange place on this list.

A mechanic's garage by day, al pastor by night, with the trompo turned by the same man for twenty years.

Alberto Kalach's hanging steel shelves around a whale skeleton painted by Gabriel Orozco, with a botanical garden wrapped around the building.

Hat-makers at the Zócalo since 1847, where the blocks and steamers are still worked behind the counter.

A tiny guisado counter: pick two from the clay pots, add rice, and eat on the pavement before the taxi.