


Conquering the Aztecs
From
$6,388.75
$6,725
Summary
Quincentenary of the Spanish Conquest & Bicentenary of Mexican Independence
2021 marks the 500th anniversary of the Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs. Although Mexico became a cornerstone of the Spanish Empire, its peoples and their ways of life, both colonial and indigenous, took on characters of their own and, in 1821, Mexico seized its independence. Tropical Mexico, along with western Central America, is one of the world's hearths of civilization. A distinctive tradition coalesced 4000 years ago and gave rise, in Central Mexico, to the Olmecs, Teotihuacan, the so-called Toltecs and then the Aztecs, while the Maya, to the east, developed their own version of the same way of life. Spanish imperialism almost ended that history, but it is obvious in the country’s diet and customs and in the complexions of the majority, that 'Mexico profundo' endures. Albeit nearly drowned out by Spanish, modern versions of the Aztec language persist.
Our tour explores both the Aztecs' antecedents and the rise of their own empire. We will visit the mighty ruined city of Teotihuacan, where the Aztecs themselves placed the beginning of the world, and Tula, supposed capital of the Toltecs, whom Aztecs identified as Golden Age ancestors. The enigma of the Aztecs is that, alongside their accomplishments as engineers, artists and philosophers, they took imperialist plunder and the ancient rite of human sacrifice to such extremes that their neighbours' resentments fed into the hands of the Conquistadores. We shall consider too, the survival of Aztec tradition after 1521 visiting colonial towns, their ornate churches and examples of the mines and industrial farms where so many of Mexico's indigenous people were exploited. Along the way, we will absorb the vibrant colours, foods and throbbing life of the region — which Aztec wisdom ascribed to the ground itself. Within a couple of weeks, foreigners too can feel it!
Tour highlights:
- Explore the Aztecs' Great Temple set amidst the Colonial towers and surging crowds of today's metropolis
- Boating amongst the Aztecs' 'floating gardens' at Xochimilco
- Visit the rock-cut Aztec shrine at Malinalco and the 'paradise' murals in the monastery below
- Admire lovely Guanajuato, gem of a Colonial city surrounded by the mines and farms that made it so affluent
Book Now
Full Price
$6,725
Today's Price
$6,388.75
Saving
$336.25
Benefit from one of these limited time offers:
- Save $336.25 if you pay your full balance today, just $6,388.75
- Pay a low deposit of $149, was $1,250.
Single supplement: $1,230
Keeping you safe on your next tour
-
FREE 'Travel Safe' kits for every traveller
-
COVID-19 insurance
-
Enhanced Health and Safety audits
-
Distanced seating on coaches
-
'Get me home' service and private airport transfers
-
COVID protocols at our hotels, and aboard our cruise ships
-
Flexible balance payment date and COVID-friendly refund conditions
-
COVID-testing and medical training for tour staff
-
Constant monitoring and post-tour tracing
Â
Meet your Experts
Expert guides, whenever you travel
We are proud of our team of expert guide lecturers. Whenever you travel, your guide lecturer will be on hand to answer questions, tell stories and deliver insights to make your trip truly remarkable.
Dr Elizabeth Baquedano
Guide Lecturer
A Mesoamerican specialist, Elizabeth is a Senior Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. She often lectures at the British Museum.
Your itinerary
Day 1 - Mexico City
Arrive in Mexico City and then meet the group at our hotel, our base for the first five nights of our tour.

Hotel | Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City |
---|---|
Meals included | Dinner |
Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City
Housed in a colonial building, the hotel is located in the heart of downtown Mexico City with an abundance of historical and cultural attractions. The rooms are furnished with TV, Wifi, coffee maker and a hairdryer. The en-suite bathrooms have a shower.
The Cathedral Zocalo, Templo Mayor, and National Palace are all within walking distance of the hotel.Â
The hotel has 107 spacious rooms and include Internet access. The hotel also features a fitness centre.
Day 2 - Mexico City
After a restful morning we enjoy lunch together and then afterwards stroll around the Zocalo, the Americas' biggest square, presided over by the vast Colonial cathedral. We shall have a first glimpse of the Aztecs' ruined Great Temple before visiting the National Palace to admire Diego Rivera's vivid murals about the Aztecs, the Spanish Conquest and its consequences. Before dinner, your Guide Lecturer will sum up the main phases of the long historical sequence as background for the explorations to come.

Hotel | Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City
Housed in a colonial building, the hotel is located in the heart of downtown Mexico City with an abundance of historical and cultural attractions. The rooms are furnished with TV, Wifi, coffee maker and a hairdryer. The en-suite bathrooms have a shower.
The Cathedral Zocalo, Templo Mayor, and National Palace are all within walking distance of the hotel.Â
The hotel has 107 spacious rooms and include Internet access. The hotel also features a fitness centre.
Day 3 - Mexico City
Our exploration continues as we explore the sprawling Great Temple, the very heart of the Aztec empire and scene of mass human sacrifice. The site museum is superb in both the exhibits and its design. We then drive to the National Museum of Anthropology, one of the world's great collections of archaeology and traditional crafts, and the first museum to express Mexico's thrilling Modernist tradition of design. After lunch here, we shall explore the galleries for a general introduction to the history of the indigenous peoples from Ice Age to today. The layout makes a climax of the compelling Aztec sculptures.

Hotel | Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City
Housed in a colonial building, the hotel is located in the heart of downtown Mexico City with an abundance of historical and cultural attractions. The rooms are furnished with TV, Wifi, coffee maker and a hairdryer. The en-suite bathrooms have a shower.
The Cathedral Zocalo, Templo Mayor, and National Palace are all within walking distance of the hotel.Â
The hotel has 107 spacious rooms and include Internet access. The hotel also features a fitness centre.
Day 4 - Teotihuacan & Acolman
Today, we travel to Teotihuacan, known as the Place of the Gods by the Aztecs, awestruck as they were by the ruins. The biggest city in the Americas 1500 years ago, Teotihuacan is dominated by what they dubbed the ‘Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon’ and the long ‘Avenue of the Dead’. We also visit the superb site museum which will help us to assess the origins of the Aztecs. In the afternoon, we shall visit Acolman for its monastery of St Augustine, where lay-out and decoration express clearly the challenge that faced the early missionaries.

Hotel | Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City
Housed in a colonial building, the hotel is located in the heart of downtown Mexico City with an abundance of historical and cultural attractions. The rooms are furnished with TV, Wifi, coffee maker and a hairdryer. The en-suite bathrooms have a shower.
The Cathedral Zocalo, Templo Mayor, and National Palace are all within walking distance of the hotel.Â
The hotel has 107 spacious rooms and include Internet access. The hotel also features a fitness centre.
Day 5 - Zultepec & Texcotzingo
This morning, we cross the mountains to Zultepec, an Aztec site where archaeologists have unearthed the gory remains of probably the very first column of Spanish colonists, captured and then gradually treated to the traditional fate of enemies. We proceed to Texcotzingo, a water garden attributed to the 15th century wise warrior-ruler and poet, Nezahualcoyotl. From up here, he could have looked all across his kingdom.

Hotel | Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hampton Inn & Suites, Mexico City
Housed in a colonial building, the hotel is located in the heart of downtown Mexico City with an abundance of historical and cultural attractions. The rooms are furnished with TV, Wifi, coffee maker and a hairdryer. The en-suite bathrooms have a shower.
The Cathedral Zocalo, Templo Mayor, and National Palace are all within walking distance of the hotel.Â
The hotel has 107 spacious rooms and include Internet access. The hotel also features a fitness centre.
Day 6 - Guanajuato
Our day starts with a tour of the extensive ruins of Tula, long held to be the capital of the Toltecs, whom the Aztecs saw as lords of a Golden Age. The centre of the site is dominated by pyramids and ball courts. Controversy continues as to the role of Tula in the centuries before the rise of the Aztecs. The afternoon takes us across the great plain to Guanajuato, a colonial city established in the 1540s in order to exploit the gold and silver found here. The unusual town plan was forced on the colonists by the lie of the land.

Hotel | Hotel Ex-Hacienda San Xavier |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hotel Ex-Hacienda San Xavier
Spectacular hotel located in the helmet of the mine and former Hacienda de Beneficio de Metal de San Francisco from the 17th century, it is a historical oasis that offers all the amenities of a great resort in one of the most emblematic cities of Mexico: Guanajuato.
155 comfortable rooms and suites finely equipped, decorated in a contemporary and traditional Mexican colonial environment. All of them have a safe, 2 telephone lines, a desk and an executive chair; satellite screen, alarm clock, electronic plate and 24-hour room service.
Day 7 - Guanajuato
Today we explore colonial Guanajuato and its surroundings which were central to the world’s production of silver and gold. The wealth accrued made Guanajuato one of the most affluent cities, as is evident in its Churrigueresque architecture, a Mexican development of the Baroque. We shall explore both the bitter industry and the art. La Valenciana boasts one of Mexico's finest Baroque churches. Nearby, we shall find the surface remains of one of the mines. After enjoying the view down into the city itself, we can stroll its streets.

Hotel | Hotel Ex-Hacienda San Xavier |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hotel Ex-Hacienda San Xavier
Spectacular hotel located in the helmet of the mine and former Hacienda de Beneficio de Metal de San Francisco from the 17th century, it is a historical oasis that offers all the amenities of a great resort in one of the most emblematic cities of Mexico: Guanajuato.
155 comfortable rooms and suites finely equipped, decorated in a contemporary and traditional Mexican colonial environment. All of them have a safe, 2 telephone lines, a desk and an executive chair; satellite screen, alarm clock, electronic plate and 24-hour room service.
Day 8 - Morelia & Pátzcuaro
Travelling further west than the Aztecs ever dared, we head into the land of the Tarascans or Purépecha, their deadliest foes. We shall pause, on the way, in Mexico's elegant pink city, Morelia, with its fine, generous colonial centre. We end the day in Pátzcuaro, which was founded in the 14th century as the capital of the Tarascans after their leader Tariácuri, subdued the indigenous peoples living in the area. The town retains charming colonial architecture in stone and brick with cobbled streets around a lovely, peaceful central square.

Hotel | Hotel Mansion Iturbe |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hotel Mansion Iturbe
Carefully restored to its former splendour, this 17th century mansion is located next to Vasco de Quiroga Square. It has an on-site restaurant which servces Michoacan cuisine.
All rooms include cable TV, WiFi, a safety deposit box, as well as a private bathroom equipped with free toiletries and a hairdryer.
Â
Day 9 - Ihuatzio & Tzintzuntzan
Today we explore two later capitals of the ancient Tarascans. They were the Aztecs' most formidable foe with an empire of their own governed on a completely different basis from the Aztecs'. The Tarascans had Mexico's longest tradition of metalwork, producing both jewellery and weapons. We start the day with a visit to Tzintzuntzan whose distinctive ruins are sited with a view that would have looked auspicious to any ancient Mexican. We proceed to Ihuatzio, first inhabited by people apparently related to the Aztecs before it became a capital of the Tarascans in the 13th century.

Hotel | Hotel Mansion Iturbe |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hotel Mansion Iturbe
Carefully restored to its former splendour, this 17th century mansion is located next to Vasco de Quiroga Square. It has an on-site restaurant which servces Michoacan cuisine.
All rooms include cable TV, WiFi, a safety deposit box, as well as a private bathroom equipped with free toiletries and a hairdryer.
Â
Day 10 - Cuernavaca
Our journey today is a grand transect of country back to the Aztec world. It brings us to Cuernavaca, whose climate beckoned centuries of elites to make their homes here, from Mexico City's wealthy today to the Spanish Conqueror himself and the Aztecs before him. We shall visit Cortés's palace, with its murals by Diego Rivera, which documented Cortés unsympathetically and the Mexican Revolution's populist faction sympathetically. We can admire the cathedral too, where one wall painting mourns the martyrdom of Mexico's pioneering mission to Japan.

Hotel | Hotel Occidental Cuernavaca |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hotel Occidental Cuernavaca
The Occidental Cuernavaca is a 4* hotel situated 10 minutes from the city centre of Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, approximately 50 miles south of Mexico City.
The hotel is in a quiet location and it offers comfortable fully-equipped rooms with everything necessary for a stay in city. It features an outdoor heated swimming pool, solarium, restaurant and bar.
Day 11 - Malinalco & Cuernavaca
We start with a visit to Malinalco, said by the Aztecs to be founded by Malinalxóchitl, goddess of witchcraft. We shall clamber up to the distinctive shrine that the Aztecs carved from into the rock. We continue to the 16th century Temple and Monastery of the Divine Saviour, celebrated for its Plateresque façade and, above all, for its murals, including a depiction of the Garden of Eden in Aztec style - an insight into the early stages of conversion to Christianity.

Hotel | Hotel Occidental Cuernavaca |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hotel Occidental Cuernavaca
The Occidental Cuernavaca is a 4* hotel situated 10 minutes from the city centre of Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, approximately 50 miles south of Mexico City.
The hotel is in a quiet location and it offers comfortable fully-equipped rooms with everything necessary for a stay in city. It features an outdoor heated swimming pool, solarium, restaurant and bar.
Day 12 - Xochicalco & Taxco
Today encapsulates the whole tour. We start with the ancient ruins at Xochicalco where we see pyramids and ball courts dating from between the era of Teotihuacan and the Aztecs. They are doubly intriguing, as proof of a continuous tradition that the Aztecs themselves sometimes denied and as evidence for a connection with the Maya, far away to the east, seen in the design of the Feathered Serpent on one of the pyramids and the figures shown seated calmly in its coils. We end the day at Taxco, where we find a small but important colonial mining town very carefully restored and with one of Mexico's most striking church façades.

Hotel | Hotel Occidental Cuernavaca |
---|---|
Meals included | All meals included |
Hotel Occidental Cuernavaca
The Occidental Cuernavaca is a 4* hotel situated 10 minutes from the city centre of Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, approximately 50 miles south of Mexico City.
The hotel is in a quiet location and it offers comfortable fully-equipped rooms with everything necessary for a stay in city. It features an outdoor heated swimming pool, solarium, restaurant and bar.
Days 13 - Xochimilco
This morning we return to the Valley of Mexico and visit the UNESCO listed site of Xochimilco, which preserves some of the canals and prolific wetland farms of the Aztec capital. We explore the shady water ways as the Aztecs would have, by boat. Afterwards, we proceed to the airport for our individual flights home.

Meals included | Breakfast, Lunch |
---|

Tour dates & prices
Included in your cost:
- Expert Guide Lecturer
- Professional Tour Manager
- Local travel aboard a private air-conditioned coach
- Meals as per the itinerary, tea or coffee with dinner
- Accommodation
- Entries to all sites as per the itinerary
- All taxes & gratuities
- Field notes
Tour Departure | Tour ID | Departure date | Return Date | Guided by | Price | Deposit | Single Supp. | Offer | Availability |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
September 6 2021 | AMCA210906 | September 6 2021 (Monday) | September 18 2021 (Saturday) | Dr Elizabeth Baquedano | $6,725 (ex. flights) |
$149 |
$1,230 |
$6,388.75 save $336.25 |
Book Now |
Tour Enquiries
Send us a message
Our helpful team would be happy to help you arrange your perfect trip. Send us an enquiry below or call them on +18883313476 and they'll be happy to help.

Newsletter
Data is kept securely according to our Privacy Policy.