The menu at El Kalimán resembles a scorecard for the board game "Clue." The sheet of paper has dozens of options, each with little boxes for marking the quantity. It also carries with it some degree of mystery. Our confusion about the number of tacos in each order was justified. Some came out as singles, some in groups of three and others in plates of four. The kid chose a queso fundido and didn't partake in the street taco ritual, which left my wife and I to face 12 of the savory meat-filled tacos served up on fragile corn tortillas. But we aren't wont to waste, and by "we," I mean "me," as I ate nine of them.

With that first meal, the theme of a week in Mexico City was set. A city that sprawls within and outside a mountain range with more than 20 million residents offers a lot of activities. And we made every attempt to devour as much as we could. Operating out of an AirBnB in the hip La Condesa neighborhood, each day my wife, daughter and I targeted one portion of the city and attempted to see all it had to offer.

We failed, ultimately. But to my mind, the failure was nevertheless an admirable one full of museums, art, ruins and more tacos. With ample opportunities left for next time.

Coyoacán

We stopped first at the Leon Trotsky Museum in the borough of Coyoacán, because what could possibly hold the attention of a 10-year-old kid like a murdered Communist?

My knowledge about Trotsky began and ended with a pickax, so the site proved enlightening. Trotsky and his family fled Russia in 1929, a move necessitated by his pointed criticism of Joseph Stalin's governance. Trotsky played globetrotter to avoid assassination, spending time in France, Norway and Turkey before two friends - artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo - helped secure him political asylum in Mexico. His family briefly stayed at La Casa Azul, Kahlo's home in 1937 before moving in 1939 to a new home where watch towers and 3-inch-thick metal doors provided some sense of security, if not security itself.

The museum is anchored by the home and gardens. It is full of original Trotsky possessions: furniture, kitchen ware, books from his short time there. His office is as it was when he was editing an essay for Ramón Mercader, a communist agent who fatally sunk a pickax into Trotsky's head.

Compared to other sites in the city, the Trotsky Museum was fairly underpopulated.

Such was not the case at Kahlo's Blue House, a short 10 minute walk from the Trotsky Museum. Kahlo has become such an identifiable part of Mexico City's iconography that a line forms quickly outside the bright-blue home and only grows longer as the day goes on.

"Skip it," one native advised us. "She's not as good an artist Rivera was. She just did the same thing over and over."

We came away from the Frida Kahlo Museum with a different take. The inside requires a lot of maneuvering, due to both crowds and the snug rooms. But the museum offers richly detailed context to her life and work, which was both haunting, beautiful and revelatory, particularly to the three of us, who only knew of her penchant for head-and-shoulder self-portraits.

The polio that resulted in asymmetrical legs, and the bus accident that nearly killed her and guaranteed she'd never have children, informed the entirety of her work and her attire. With added context, the bruised humanity of her work surfaced. An exhibit explaining the folkloric and personal statements found in her wardrobe was wonderfully assembled.

Two other sites connected to Rivera are nearby, though in opposite directions. I'd first recommend recharging with some flautas from Taqueria Aguayo, a tiny little space near the town square in Coyoacán.

Museo Anahuacalli posthumously completed Rivera's vision of a grand pyramidlike structure to house his personal collection of tens-of-thousands of pre-Hispanic artifacts - masks, urns, bowls, plates and sculptures - from various indigenous cultures. The top floor includes several of Rivera's murals in varying states of completion. The House-Studio Museum of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is in the opposite direction, but a short drive away in Álvaro Obregón. Kahlo's presence is largely limited to the bright-blue paint on the outside of her studio. But several Rivera sculptures are on display. The bed where he died is also there, along with his death mask.

Xochimilco

The borough of Xochimilco sits south of the city's center. It is a well-known and still well-trafficked area, due in large part to its canal system. Some locals suggested the canal experience has degraded over the years. We'd seen a well-circulated photograph of Kahlo placing her hand and face right at the water's surface. Decades later, such close interaction with the contents of Xochimilco's canals wouldn't be advisable.

Still, brightly painted boats travel around the canals on journeys that typically start at about two hours. Each boat is then set upon by various vendors. Some play music - mariachi bands or smoking marimba players. Others sell jewelry and trinkets. And some offer food and drink: esquites, cups of corn cut off the cob; and pulque, an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented agave sap, an acquired taste that most are happier to avoid acquiring.

Two hours on the boat was about all we budgeted for, which was a disappointment, as our guide said a longer trip was required to visit La Isla de las Munecas. The "Island of the Dolls" is one man's eerie art project with thousands upon thousands of discolored dolls and dismembered doll parts placed into a labyrinthine tourist site that should keep the fires of nightmares burning for years.

Another regret was finding the Museo Dolores Olmedo closed on a Sunday. Olmedo was a patron who bankrolled works by Rivera and Kahlo, among others. (Note: Her Kahlo pieces were recently traveling to other museums.) The world-class museum is a short ride from the canals.

Teotihuacán

The ruins at Teotihuacán are about 45 minutes to the northwest of the city. Public transportation will take interested parties there, but a $22 Uber ride placed us there minutes before it opened and a good half hour or so before tour buses began unloading visitors by the score. Guides can be found around the entrances. For about $40, they offer history and background to go along with the steep climbs up the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon.

The site requires a lot of history condensed into a two-hour visit, dating back to a couple hundred years B.C. The heavy-duty construction started between the first and the seventh centuries A.D., with an estimated 25,000-plus people at one time inhabiting the city.

As with any of the pre-Columbian pyramids, going up requires fitness, going down requires nerve. Watch your step.

Should you Uber back to the city, for an extra $20 you can add the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the route. For those not spiritually inclined, the Basilica grounds offer an impressive view of the city, albeit one immersed in smog. For the rest, the site is a spiritual whopper, involving Saint Juan Diego and a vision of the Virgin Mary on his tilma or cloak. That tilma rests behind bulletproof glass in the new Basilica with three moving sidewalks below forcing people to observe it and move on. The new Basilica is a beautiful piece of architecture. The old one from 1536 is lovely, too, though its structural integrity was compromised by the masses of visitors.

Zócalo

The main square in Mexico City, the Zócalo is a swarm of activity befitting an urban center boasting both pre-Columbian ruins and ornamental colonial buildings. The perimeter of the ruins can be taken in from the street, but it's worth a few dollars to get access to the grounds of Tenochtitlan and the accompanying museum.

This part of the city spills forth with book stores and museums, some of them quite lavish, others a little more spartan. My favorite was the Museo de la Caricatura, with its rooms full of a century's worth of caricatures, political cartoons and other comics. Inside the courtyard, artists worked and sold their wares.

Less interesting and more upsetting was El Mieto, an exhibit at the Autonomía Universitaria, which consisted of life-size dioramas depicting ritual sacrifices by Druids and Aztecs in one room. Another room was dedicated to the evolution of vampires. But hey, maybe that's your thing.

This part of the city alone could have filled multiple days.

Chapultepec

Bosque de Chapultepec is a sprawling green space dotted with museums inside and around its perimeter. A long uphill walk leads to the Castillo de Chapultepec, an imperial palace that has been transformed into a massive national history museum. It offers a nice elevated view of the city and an opportunity to see one of Santa Ana's wooden legs.

Back downhill, about a 15 or 20 minute walk away, is the Museo Nacional de Antropología, a two-story monster of an anthropology center. I cannot recommend arriving there with fresh legs and a full stomach. The museum is a marvel but one that will devour three hours easily.

La Condesa/La Roma

We made La Condesa our base of operations. The neighborhood is loaded with restaurants and bars, though it's also lighter on the foot traffic than other spots like the Zócalo. Chapultepec is a short walk away. The city's Metro system proved simple to use, and two train stations were a short walk from our place.

La Condesa blurred into La Roma to the north. Both neighborhoods are full of strong culinary options. Mercado Roma was basically a deluxe food court with strong plays for those seeking coffee and ice cream. From there we walked to Fábrica Social, a small business that helps earn reasonable compensation for dresses, bags, shoes and other creations made by indigenous women from rural parts of Mexico. The stop was something of a compensatory visit for our daughter, who was a good sport during 90 minutes at a Trotsky museum.

Some churros, another cup of coffee, and we started to wind down toward departure: bloated and beat. And still the sights unseen nagged at me: the home and studio of architect Luis Barragán, which required advance reservations; the Friday and Saturday night lucha libre at Arena Mexico, which just required more energy than we had after entire days spent on foot.

These can form the basis of the next visit, as Mexico City is just a two-hour flight away.

There's no need to stuff 12 tacos into a single meal.