Welcome to Buenos Aires! Our Argentinan friend Luciano suggested a 14 point plan for our visit,...
...which we follow closely — to our great advantage. Buenos Aires has beautiful parks...
...with exotic plants...
...and special prisons for dogs and their owners.
The “Nuestra Señora del Pilar” church...
...borders this more quiet upperclass neighborhood.
Eva Duarte stays here.
She is better known as Evita Peron, the wife of Argentina’s socialist President Peron — and kind of Argentina’s Lady Di.
Palermo is a colorful neighborhood in the North of the city.
Teatro Colón
The Avenida Presidente Roque Sáenz Peña...
...leads to the Justice Palace...
...and the Teatro Colón. Wagner’s opera “Ring der Nibelungen” originally took 4 days. For this theatre, it was rewritten to 1 day (75% reduction!).
300 people came from Germany to see the opera. With 2 days travel from/to Germany, they still saved 1 day.
The Italians (who are the only ones who understand the Italian operas) threw food if they did not like the performance. Unfortunately, it landed not on the stage, but on the upper class seatings below.
When the theatre was renovated in 2012, every single mosaic stone was pulled out, cleaned, and put back.
Food
We walk a lot
...and compensate the loss of energy with excellent Argentinan meat.
But you cannot have beef tenderloin every day!
You have to change from time to time! (Here: beef shortribs)
And then have some churros in the Café Toroni...
...or some pizza in the Pizzeria Güerrin.
Tango
Argentina is where the Tango was invented.
Here is an open Milonga (dance evening) in the Plaza Barrancas de Belgrano.
The area is named after Manuel Belgrano, who took part in the Argentine wars of independence (1810+) and created the flag of Argentina.
Many important tangos were written in the Esquina Homero Manzi Café...
... mostly by Carlos Gardel. Here is the street in his honor.
In case you want to learn the basic step of Tango. Or come to our
Dancing class.
La Boca
The National Museum of History in the La Boca neighborhood is much more beautiful from the outside...
...than the inside. Pictures have no labels. So we learn that there were plenty of wars, but we don’t know between whom, when, or why.
So we rather go for one of the nice cafés...
...in the Avenida Caseros.
The area has some painted houses...
...but is otherwise of rather mixed ambience...
... in which the El Obrero Restaurant is a kind of oasis of good food.
Plaza de Mayo is the place of many important buildings...
... such as the Cabildo. This was the house of the government of Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, the predecessor of Argentina until 1810.
Here is also the Catedral Metropolitana, where Pope Francis was Archbishop.
Here rests José de San Martín, a general who freed Argentina, then Chile, and finally Peru from the Spanish.
The Plaza de Mayo is also home to the Casa Rosada.
It is the seat of the Argentine government...
...with a beautiful courtyard.
Here is where Evita Peron wrote her famous song “Don’t cry for me Argentina”...
... and where today, Cristina Kirchner has her office. (Just kidding about the song, of course).
On the other end of the Avenida de Mayo, there is the congress.
Transport
Metro stations are usually nicely decorated.
Ours is called “Salida”.
Mafalda is also Argentine. Here, she asks “Do you know why this world is so beautiful?”, and then explains: “Because this one is a model. The real one is a disaster...”
Escalators are preemptively labeled with “Closed for repair” signs. If the escalator does not work, all you have to do is close the door and the sign is already there.
Argentina was never conquered by the British. But this was also not necessary. People queue for the bus anyway.
This bicycle lane comes with a detailed instruction for suicide.
The Puerto Madero docks have been completely remodeled, and are now a luxury neighborhood.
San Telmo
The San Telmo neighborhood is one of the oldest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires.
It has some charming 19th century architecture...
...and a fair on Sundays.
Today, we leave the city to go to Uruguay.
Click here to continue
