Filming locations in Mexico City

Visiting Mexico City: a set-jetting guide. Few openings in modern cinema land with the punch of Spectre's, and it was shot here, in the heart of the Mexican capital. Bond weaves through a vast Day of the Dead crowd while the city itself becomes the set. The strange, satisfying twist for the traveller is that the parade in the film was invented for the screen, and the city liked it so much it now stages a real one every year.

The set piece unfolds on the Zócalo, one of the largest city squares on earth. This is where Bond pursues his target through the surging crowd in the film's bravura opening. It is free and open at all hours, framed by the cathedral on one side and the national palace on the other, and in late October the Day of the Dead parade the film inspired sweeps right across it. Even on a quiet morning the scale of the plaza tells you why the scene needed somewhere this grand.

Just off the square is the film's other indelible image. The Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico carries a spectacular stained-glass ceiling in the Art Nouveau style, a sweep of coloured glass that appears in Spectre's opening sequence. It is a working hotel, but you do not need to be a guest to look up: slip into the lobby or head to the rooftop restaurant to take in the Tiffany-style canopy. Be discreet, or simply book a drink and linger.

The pleasure of set-jetting here is how tightly the headline spots are packed. The historic centre gathers the parade route, the cathedral, the palace and the hotel within a few easy blocks, so a morning on foot covers the lot. Move slowly and look up often, because the grandeur is as much overhead as underfoot.

Time your visit to the city's own calendar if you can. The real Day of the Dead celebrations in late October turn the streets that Spectre filmed into a riot of marigolds, painted faces and processions, the city playing the part the film once imagined for it. Come for that and the opening sequence stops being a scene and becomes something you walk straight into.