Buenos Aires is known as the Paris of South America and for good reason. Argentina’s capital is a city full of life and intensity, of stories that are shared and intertwined.
People meet on the streets and sit for hours at tables in cafes. The night wakes you up, it’s a new day, and the city lights up with its abundance of theaters, restaurants and bars.
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Monserrat, Balvanera and San Nicolás
Buenos Aires’ downtown neighborhoods include all the areas around Plaza de Mayo and Avenida de Mayo. Around the Plaza, you can visit the Cabildo, the Cathedral, and the Casa Rosada. It is worth booking a guided tour if you visit on a weekend as it will be a good starting point to get to know Buenos Aires.
As a special treat, enjoy a behind-the-scenes tour of the Teatro Colón, one of the most important opera houses in the world due to its capacity, acoustics, and workshops.
The Avenida de Mayo
This avenue starts at the Plaza de Mayo and is one of the city’s most essential and traditional avenues. Walking until you reach the Congress building, you can visit several of the oldest and most important architectural structures, such as the Casa de la Cultura and the Palacio Barolo.
A place you can not miss in this area is the Café Tortoni, one of the oldest in Buenos Aires, and it seems that time has stopped there. If you don’t want to consume something, you can simply visit to experience the museum on its walls. There are also theater and tango plays almost every night, but be sure to buy tickets in advance.
Puerto Madero
This site is the most modern neighborhood in Buenos Aires. It was built by the river, so you can enjoy a pleasant environment for walking and engaging in some physical activity.
A pleasant walk is going from one end to the other, where you can enjoy the dams zone and the refurbished area with streets with women’s names. The Puente de la Mujer (Women’s Bridge), an icon of Buenos Aires, is located there and has excellent illumination at night.
Renovated, Puerto Madero has moved away from the “porteño tradition” and is populated with buildings, restaurants, cafes, and nightclubs along its shores. If you are out and about at night, an excellent Argentine gastronomic proposal is Estilo Campo.
San Telmo and La Boca
And being in the area, San Telmo and Boca are a must. The idea is to go twice to these neighborhoods, especially the first: in Defensa Street, one of the most emblematic of the area on weekends is installed a lovely fair, food stalls, leather crafts, antiques, glass and fabrics, clothing, and various objects.
It is worth walking around and when you get to the corner, let yourself be guided by the smell of a barbecue and buy a traditional choripán, to finish with a dulce de leche and a coffee “al paso.”
During the week, in Plaza Dorrego, you can enjoy a nice beer and watch the tango dancers that usually gather there.
La Boca is one of the most attractive promenades of Buenos Aires, with its walls painted in different colors. It is also an open-air museum, and artistic expression makes Caminito famous for its tango.
Everything is art, its music, its tango, its murals, its painters exhibiting their work; here converge the simple and the sophisticated, the real and the mythical, the current and the ancient. You won’t want to miss it. There are several notable bars and tanguerías in the area, such as El Almacén, where you can enjoy a good show after a gourmet dinner. Another point of interest in this neighborhood is the Boca Juniors Stadium.
In Argentina, watching a soccer match is only a tiny part of the natural spectacle; in the stands, there is jumping, shouting, chanting, hugging, and, fundamentally, a lot of passion. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10 a.m., there is a guided tour. The trip goes around the neighborhood, and inside this and other stadiums, the ride also takes you to museums.
Another neighborhood in Buenos Aires that you can not miss is La Recoleta. On weekends there is the Craft Fair in Plaza Francia. Why do you have to be there? Because a walk around there will let you visit the Cemetery, which is a unique experience; the site is part of the culture of the porteños due to its funerary architecture and sculptures that makes this place more of an outdoor museum of a final resting place.
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