Teotihuacan
Mexico

Click bottom image to see Oaxaca or Mexico City, Cholula Great Pyramid, Chichen Itza pyramid

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Teotihuacan, an ancient Toltec city and its Pyramid of the Sun (65metres high, 200 metres long on each side), the second largest pyramid in the Americas after Mexico's mostly hidden Great Pyramid of Cholula

Popocatepetl volcano, ancient pyramid inspiration, seen by plane approaching Mexico City. The name means 'Smoking Mountain' in Nahuatl, an Aztec language.

Award-winning GAA tours of Mexico are friendly, good value, small group vacations: Mexico Family Discovery; Ruta Maya; Specials and Late Availability; Yucatan Highlights

A view down Teotihuacan's main street, the Avenue of the Dead, from the Pyramid of the Moon. On the mid-left is the Pyramid of the Sun. Photo Jack Hynes.

A reproduction of a mural depicting the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan from the Tepantitla apartment complex located at Teotihuacan. The mural is in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Photo Thomas Aleto.

The Pyramid of the Moon and the Avenue of the Dead on a Mexican festival day with typically pushy trinket-seller. Click to see Oaxaca Pictures.

Teotihuacan was built between 600BC and 200BC by the Toltecs (not to be confused with the Aztecs). Teotihuacan roughly translates as The Place where Gods Gathered. It is a bleak and blasted city of ghosts these days with most of its buildings (the mud and wooden ones) returned to dust, but the site is still awesome in its scale and the pyramids are unbelievable, in spite of the fact that - unlike their Egyptian counterparts - they are not solid stone but earth and rubble mounds dressed with stone.
Teotihuacan is roughly 50kms outside Mexico City so an absolute must-see for capital visitors.

Information: Mexico Guide | Mexico Map | Mexico Tours

Photos: Mexico City | Mexico Pictures | Chichen Itza