The Jardín Centenario is the social heart of Coyoacán, a leafy plaza laid out in the former atrium of a sixteenth-century monastery and entered through the surviving arches of its old gateway. At its centre a fountain with two bronze coyotes recalls the neighbourhood's name — "place of coyotes" in Nahuatl. Cafés and cantinas line the surrounding arcades, and the square runs straight into the adjoining Plaza Hidalgo with its church and colonial government house.
At weekends the gardens fill with families, buskers, balloon sellers and food stalls, and the whole area takes on a fair-like buzz. It is the natural starting point for a wander through Coyoacán's cobbled streets, and a fine place to sit with a coffee and watch the city's most village-like neighbourhood go by.