The State of México encircles Mexico City on three sides and is where the capital goes at weekends. It is also where the capital's own story starts: Teotihuacán, the largest city in the Americas at its height around 500 AD, stands an hour north-east, and nobody knows for certain who built it. The Aztecs found it already abandoned and gave it the name — "the place where the gods were created".
Toluca is the capital, the highest state capital in Mexico at 2,660 metres, with a botanical garden housed under stained glass. Valle de Bravo on its reservoir is the weekend town — sailing, paragliding, and the monarch butterflies wintering in the forests above from November to March.
Tepotzotlán has the finest Jesuit church interior in the country; El Oro is a mining town that built itself a French-style theatre with the proceeds; Ixtapan de la Sal has been a spa since before the Spanish.
Naucalpan is part of the capital's sprawl rather than a destination in itself.
