Museo Frida Kahlo

The Casa Azul, the cobalt-blue house on the corner of Londres and Allende in Coyoacán, is where Frida Kahlo was born in 1907 and where she died in 1954. Diego Rivera moved in around 1941, added the wing that encloses the courtyard and had Juan O'Gorman rework the exterior in 1946. León Trotsky lived here from 1937 to 1939. In 1958 the house opened as a museum, with the poet Carlos Pellicer as its first director, and it is now one of the most visited museums in the city.

The house is arranged much as the couple left it. Upstairs, Kahlo's studio keeps her original furniture, and her bedroom holds a painted plaster corset and the mirror fixed over the bed that she used for self-portraits; her ashes rest in an urn. The yellow kitchen and dining room are hung with pottery from Metepec, Oaxaca, Tlaquepaque and Guanajuato. In the garden you will find a stepped pyramid, a fountain and reflecting pool, sculptures by Mardonio Magaña and the inscription "Frida y Diego vivieron en esta casa 1929-1954". Kahlo's Tehuana-style dresses, around 2,000 votive paintings, Judas figures and pre-Hispanic pieces are also part of the collection.

The key practical point is that there are no ticket sales at the door. Tickets must be bought online through the museum's ticketing site, and popular days sell out, so book several days ahead. Hours are 10:00 to 18:00 on Tuesday and Friday to Sunday, 11:00 to 18:00 on Wednesday and 10:00 to 21:00 on Thursday; the museum is closed on Mondays. Phone photos without flash are allowed for personal use, but filming video is not allowed anywhere on the site. Admission is free for visitors with disabilities, and the museum has ramps, a lift, wheelchairs and Braille labels in some areas.

Allow around an hour and a half. The museum receives around 25,000 visitors a month, and as a house museum it keeps its original architecture, so the rooms can feel busy; the Thursday late opening gives you more time to wait for quieter moments. On the last Wednesday of each month there is also a Museum Night from 17:15 to 21:00. Your ticket includes a courtesy visit to the Museo Anahuacalli, Rivera's stone museum further south in Coyoacán.

There is a café and a small gift shop on site. The museum is run by a trust of the Banco de México that also looks after Rivera's museums, which is why the two visits are linked. Note the holiday closures on 1 May, 16 September and 25 December, among other dates listed on the museum's website.