The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

This place, near where Juan Diego is said to have seen the Virgin Mary, is considered by the Catholic church to be the most sacred place in the Americas.  It is a great half-day visit, full of beautiful gardens and a variety of cool churches.  The old basilica is sinking, and so the icon that nearly 20 million pilgrims come to see each year has been moved to the very groovy and modern new basilica.  To keep pilgrims from clogging things up (for they are often on their knees), there are moving sidewalks at the icon.

The best place to park is here.  When you emerge from this parking garage, you will be in a courtyard next to  the baptistery. The best way to view everything is to make a circle, and I prefer to start at the baptistery and head up the hill, finally visiting the new basilica and seeing the icon last.  Don't miss the religious market -- I prefer the one on the other side of the hill, near the Capilla del Pocito.

If bringing out-of-town guests, I think that the best way to see the Basilica is on the way back from the pyramids of Teotihuacan -- it's literally right on your way.  Or reverse it and see the Basilica and then the pyramids.  Also, the Basilica is not far from the temple, so you could hit three vastly different religious sites in one day.

Finally, don't go in December.  The Virgin of Guadalupe's saint day is December 12th, and they get more than 10 million pilgrims on that one day.  The rest of the month gets most of the other pilgrims.

19.485723N, 99.118358W

Geo-Coordinated

You might notice that at the bottom of a lot of my posts, there are two numbers skulking about.  Those are a location's geo-coordinates, and most GPS units will let you pop them in, so you can get to a place when an address might not be as easy for your GPS to decipher.  Also, you can go to Google Maps and just paste the whole thing into the search bar, and the map will go right to that point.

If you want to find the coordinates of a place, it's easier than you think.  Use Google Maps, either the map view or the satellite view, to find where you want to go.  Zoom in as much as you can, all the way down to Street View (very handy) if you can. ( Click this link to see the entrance to the Basilica of Guadalupe parking garage for our example.)  Near the top right of the map/view is a link marked "Link" -- click that and copy it (Control-C).

It will look something like this: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=212431441249480182881.000464b828fa2b4120bc7&ll=19.485639,-99.118395&spn=0,0.013089&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=19.485723,-99.118358&panoid=BWTpv_yuritJE9unotL3_g&cbp=12,144.23,,0,-4.86

It looks like a bunch of garbly-gook, but if you look carefully, you will see a set of numbers separated by a comma, which I've highlighted here.  Inside a map link, there will never be another set of numbers that looks like that -  xx.xxxxxx, -yy.yyyyyy.  Those are your coordinates.  The first number is your North coordinate, and the second (without the minus sign) is the West coordinate.  The more decimal places that your GPS will let you use, the more accurate it will take you.

Happy exploring!