National History Museum at Chapultepec Castle

Chapultepec Castle was built between 1785 and 1787, when it was designed for Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez as a retreat. After functioning as the Colegio Militar (military school), the residence of Maximilian and Carlota and then Porfirio Díaz, President Lázaro Cárdenas declared it the Museo Nacional de Historia (National History Museum) in 1944. Since then, it has exhibited collections encompassing Mexico’s archeological, historical, and artistic heritage from the time of the Mexicas to the Mexican Revolution. 

To see the collections up close, head to the former Colegio Militar, where murals by Juan O’Gorman, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jorge González Camarena, and others are on display. The paintings cover topics such as the conquest of Mexico, the independence movement, the Reform period and the fall of the empire, the Mexican Revolution, and feudalism. 

The Alcázar section contains several rooms filled with the furnishings used by Maximilian of Habsburg and Carlota, and by Porfirio Díaz and his wife. The highlight is the Galería de Emplomados, created on General Díaz’s orders. It is a corridor lined with floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows, made in Paris in the style of 19th-century European art. They depict five mythological gods. Also be sure to visit the courtyard surrounded by stone columns, created when Maximilian inhabited the castle.