 Visiting the Centre |
 BUENOS AIRES, LA CAPITAL |
Population
To the city's poet laureate, Jorge Luis Borges, Buenos Aires was as eternal as air and water. To many Argentines, their capital city is synonymous with the country itself, and indeed 40% of the population lives in the city's massive, sprawling suburbs. This complex, energetic, and seductive port city, which stretches south-to-north along the Río de la Plata, has been the gateway to Argentina for centuries. Porteños, as the multinational people of Buenos Aires are known, possess an elaborate and rich cultural identity. They value their European heritage highly -Italian and German names outnumber Spanish, and the lifestyle and architecture are markedly more European than any other in South America. One of the world's finest opera houses, the Teatro Colón, flourishes here on the plains alongside the river. Porteños are intensely involved in the life and culture of their city, and they will gladly share the secrets of Buenos Aires if you lend an ear and relate your own stories in return.
Origins and main areas
A city transported from its European parent, its compact and regular center is reminiscent of Paris, but its tree-lined avenues and frequent plazas have a beguiling, faded elegance. The city throngs with bankers on the make and sophisticated dressers mingling with the gaunt beggars and unemployed from the surrounding shanty-town suburbs. Downtown, the Plaza de Mayo is the traditional focus of activity, while nearby Avenida 9 de Julio is popularly known as the world's widest thoroughfare and is truly a pedestrian's nightmare. Avenida Santa Fe is the most fashionable shopping area.
Physical structure
Buenos Aires' physical structure is a mosaic as varied and diverse as its culture. The city has no dominating monument, no natural monolith that serves as its focal point. Instead, Buenos Aires is composed of many small places, intimate details, and tiny events and interactions, each with a slightly different shade, shape, and character. Glass-sheathed skyscrapers cast their slender shadows on 19th century Victorian houses; tango bars hazed with the piquant tang of cigar smoke face dusty, treasure-filled antique shops across the way.
Neighbourhoods
The city's neighbourhoods are small and highly individualized, each with its own characteristic colors and forms. In the San Telmo district, the city's multinational heritage is embodied in a varied and cosmopolitan architecture - Spanish Colonial design couples with Italian detailing and graceful French Classicism. La Boca's pressed tin houses are painted a rainbow of colors, and muralists have turned the district's side-streets into avenues of color.
Attractions & Spirit
Buenos Aires' attractions include the Catedral Metropolitana, which contains the tomb of José de San Martín, a hero of Argentina's struggle for independence; the Teatro Colón, a world-class facility for opera, ballet and classical music; a cluster of worthwhile and popular museums, including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Museo del Cine and Museo Histórico Nacional, which presents a panorama of the Argentine experience; the colorful Italian suburb of La Boca, which features brightly painted wooden houses lining the Riachuelo waterway; and the Cementerio de la Recoleta, the place to go to witness the national passion for death. For all its diversity, the elusive spirit of Argentina as a country is present everywhere in Buenos Aires. The national dance, the tango, is perhaps the best expression of that spirit--practiced in dance halls, parks, open plazas, and ballrooms, it is a dance of intimate separation and common rhythm, combining both an elegant reserve and an exuberant passion.
| WALKS | | San Telmo | Come to know the city origins: Narrow and cabblestone little streets, colonial buildings with wrought iron railings, constructions of different styles: French, English, Art nouveau, etc. Presently lodge artists{and antiquarians’ ateliers, art galleries, etc. You can’t miss a weekend at Plaza Dorrego, where you can see a couple dancing tango as well as the most required antiquities. | | Centro | After contemplating Catalinas Towers, you can’t miss Florida Street for pedestrians, with its refined galleries and shops. Then take Corrientes Avenida famous because of its theaters, bookstores, pizza bars, and cafes. At the crossing with the majestic 9 de Julio Avenida, you will find the Porteño icon by excellence: The Obelisk. From there you can already notice the grand Colón Theater, one of the most important theaters of worldwide lyrics. Complete your walk at Cervantes Theater, a treasure of Spanish renaissance style. | | Monserrat | A promenade in the historic area of the city, will lead you to Plaza de Mayo, main scenario of the Argentine political history. There you will find the President’s house (Seat of the National government), the Cabildo”, the Cathedral, The Ministry of Finance and Banco de la Nación”. Then, a good suggestion is to walk along the traditional Avenida de Mayo, enjoying its eclectic buildings, (hotels, offices, theaters, bars and bookstores, etc.) and to continue until Plaza de los Congresos”, finally arriving at the majestic National Congress Building. | | Retiro y Barrio Norte | Strat your promenade enjoyig the grandiose perspective given by 9 de Julio Avenida. Then, walk along Santa Fe Avenida, where countless, elegant boutiques offer high quality products, from the most formal to the latest fashion ones. Enjoy the distinguished Callao Avenida and the surroundings of Posadas and Montevideo streets. Finally visit the beautiful San Martin Park in Front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. | | Recoleta | This is the Place for luxury, art, culture and good food. Visit its historic Cemetery, the National Fine Arts Museum, Palais de Glace and Recoleta Culture Centre. Recoleta characterized by its aristocratic and French style is one of the paradigms of Argentine good life. | | Puerto Madero | Recycled docks facing the river, where you can find first-line shops and restaurants together with the most modern intelligent buildings of the city: cristal towers in which the most important companies as well as national and international holdings gather. This is Puerto Madero. The latest architectural trends. Here the calmness of the river gets mixed with all the glamour of a fashion world”. |
Where to stay & Food
Buenos Aires is an expensive city but regardless whether you're after a cheap or a top-end hotel, it is possible to stay right in the center of things. Congreso is a good place to look for inexpensive lodgings, while mid-range hotels are concentrated on Avenida de Mayo.
Food bargains can be had in the suburbs of La Boca and San Telmo. Downtown, Lavalle and Avenida Corrientes are the places to go for pizza, coffee with the city's intellectuals or one of those ubiquitous meaty dishes. (See Links”). The dining options in Buenos Aires are endless. This is a city that takes dining seriously, and meals can easily last a few hours. Like the national norm, nobody here really starts eating until 9pm. Main courses usually consist of an asado, a barbecue of excellent quality beef. Beef is dominant, and it also comes in the forms of bife de chorizo (sirloin steak) or empanadas (meat pies). The local wine is also good, especially the reds. You also might want to try mate, the traditional gaucho drink. The national deserts are dulce de leche, a milk jelly, and alfajores - Argentine sweets made from dulce de leche.
Nightlife
Buenos Aires is never more alive than it is at night. It is what you'd expect from a city that invented tango. Avenues come alive with people on their way to restaurants and theaters, especially Puerto Madero or Recoleta. People like to dress up and stay out until dawn, and anyone who visits the city should go and see a tango show. There are several major venues, most of them in San Telmo. After dinner or a night of dancing, Porteños like to grab a coffee at one of the city's myriad cafes, chat, and perhaps watch the sunrise.
| THE PAMPAS |
The region
The unrelentingly flat Pampas is Argentina's agricultural heartland and the home of that symbol of romantic nationalism, the gaucho. Comprising the provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa and major parts of Santa Fe and Córdoba, its varied environments include forested hills, extensive grasslands and flamingo-coated salt lakes. The Parque National Lihué Calel is a popular detour, with wildlife including some puma and many guanaco, rhea, native hares and a variety of wild chinchilla called a vizcacha. The cities of La Plata, Luján (whose basilica to La Virgen de Luján receives 4 million pilgrims a year), Rosario and Santa Fe are worth seeing for their many museums, churches and faded colonial buildings.
Home of the legendary gaucho, all the romantic fantasies about Argentina are concentrated here. An immense land fit for dreams and for man to rediscover himself. Extensive fields of alfalfa, sorghum, wheat, maize or sunflowers under an endless blue sky. Prairies reaching out of sight dotted with thousands of head of cattle which are the basis of the asados (roasts) of the best meat in the world. And presiding over these plains, fine ranch houses, horses hitched to a rail and the gauchos taking mate beneath the shade of an ombú tree.
Santa Rosa, capital de la Pampa
This city still conserves part of the estancia "La Malvina" which can be seen in the recreational centre Don Tomás, a park of 350 Ha with a large lake. On the outskirts of the city are woods of caldén trees - a large, sturdy tree with a bell-shaped crown, the provincial tree.
Distances from Santa Rosa Buenos Aires 607 Km, Córdoba 618 Km, Neuquén 535 Km, Bahía Blanca 327Km | Arts and crafts and saddlery: Finely woven cloth with geometrical designs. Rastras - wide gaucho belts -, facones - gaucho knives -, stirrups and silver or nickel mate gourds, in the Mercado Artesanal in Santa Rosa.
What else to do in the area:
Life on an Estancia
On the estancias you can enjoy traditional food, carriage rides, riding, trekking, photographic safaris and exhibitions of Creole skill or an exciting game of polo.
Fishing and Hunting
Hunting of red deer, puma and wild boar. Fishing in the lakes of Don Tomás and Chadilauquen, and in the reservoir Casa de Piedra.
The Culture of the Pampa
There are numerous Creole fiestas in this region and the Fiesta Nacional de Doma y Folklore in Intendente Alvear is worth a visit. The world's best polo can be seen in this same town.
Parque LURO, one of the world’s largest parks
Red deer are bred in a semi-wild state in this animal park of 7,500 Ha. European species like the wild boar and pheasant have been introduced here. There is also a mini zoo with autochthonous and exotic species. On its salt flat, frequently converted into a lagoon by the rains, you can see a colony of pink flamingos and hundred-year-old caldén trees.
Parque Nacional LIHUÉ CALEL
"SIERRA OF LIFE" IN RANQUEL LANGUAGE. The valleys of this ancient sierra are home to species like the puma, guanaco, fox, vizcacha and a variety of birds. It is a landscape of salmon-pink rocks dotted with yellow-flowering cacti. Following the low-lying fields you can see cave-paintings on the over-hanging rocks, drawn by the first inhabitants of these lands.
Other places of interest
Salinas Grandes de Hidalgo, these salt flats are 15 Km away from Macachín.
| MAR DEL PLATA |
The town
If summer means the beach to the inhabitants of Greater Buenos Aires, Mar del Plata is most often the beach they are thinking of. Situated on the northern Atlantic coast, 400km (228mi) from the capital, beaches in this area sprawl for 8km (5mi), with sophisticated mansions (reflecting the area's upper-class origins) mingling with the new middle-class resorts. Sea lions keep an eye on the fishing activities around the wharves, and a replica of the grotto of Lourdes is a kitsch paradise.
Compared to some of Argentina's other cities, Mar del Plata is young. It was founded in 1874 by a developer named Patricio Peralta Ramos, who turned the town into an industrial center. The true wealth of the city, however, has come with the overwhelming tide of tourism that has taken place in the last 50 years.
Cuisine
Here eating is good in Mar del Plata. Because nobody really likes to cook on vacation, the city has an ample supply of restaurants offering a wide selection of both international and national cuisine. The best bet is probably sea food - it's bound to be fresh.
Nightlife
Most of the night time activity takes place along Avenida Constitución, which has so many discos that is has been given an infamous nick name: Avenida del Ruido, "Noisy Avenue." There is also, of course, the Casino, which at night becomes a black tie affair.
| CORDOBA |
The colonial capital
Córdoba, second city of Argentina, is the country's colonial capital, a picturesque city of a million on the edge of a mountain range known as the Sierra Chica. Because of its proximity to the mountains, Córdoba is a perfect base for excursions into the natural beauty of the Andes, or even the Pampas 100 km to the south.
Distances from Córdoba: Buenos Aires 710 Km, Mendoza 670 Km, Santa Fe 329 Km, San Miguel de Tucumán 578 Km.
Prior to the rise of Buenos Aires, Córdoba was Argentina's center of arts and learning, a place of scholars and priests, churches and universities. Though in terms of national importance the city has fallen behind the capital, it still retains and independent spirit and distinctive grace. Its name comes from the surrounding province, which embraces an unusually scenic section of the Andes, the Sierras de Córdoba.
Natural landmark and physical center
The Primero, or Suquia River forms Cordoba's main natural landmark. The physical center is the Plaza San Martin, named after Argentina's great liberator and the site of the city's cathedral. South of the Plaza is Calle Obispo Trejos, an easily walkable avenue filled the some of the city's most illustrious colonial buildings including the Church Compañía de Jesús, which was built in 1645 and is known for its unique roof.
Today, a fine collection of colonial buildings is concentrated in its compact center. They include the old market, the Iglesia Catedral (featuring a Romanesque dome) and the Jesuit Iglesia de la Compañía. The Museo Histórico Provincial Marqués de Sobremonte is one of the most important historical museums in the country.
Cuisine
The cuisine of Córdoba is the cuisine of the Pampa; and the indisputable staple of the Pampa is beef. Asado, of course, rules here as it does over much of Argentina, as do empanadas. Perhaps most unique to Córdoba is Bagna Cauda, an Italian dish brought to the city by the many immigrants who came from the Piedmont. Also popular are lomito sandwiches, made from beef tenderloin.
Nightlife
The city's nightlife begins with a meal. There are excellent venues down by river, where you can watch the water and sky and tap into the inherent peace of the surroundings. Afterwards, there are many bars, night clubs, and pubs to choose from in the Cerro de las Rosas or Comertial District. There is also a casino in nearby Carlos Paz on the shore of San Roque Lake.
Adventure Tourism
Mountaineering, trekking, mountain-biking, golf and excursions on horseback in the sierras of Córdoba.
Fiestas and Traditions: During the second half of January, the town of Cosquín holds the country's most important folklore festival. In October, Villa General Belgrano, a town of German origin, holds a beer festival. Here, during the Holy Week takes place the Viennese pastries festival, and the Alpine chocolate festival in July.
SPAs on the reservoirs, rivers and streams. Fishing and water-sports. Casinos in La Falda, Mina Clavero and Villa Carlos Paz.
Arts and crafts fairs in Cosquín (2nd. and 3rd. week in January) and in Córdoba (March/April).
| SANTA FE |
Santa Fe: the city
Sante Fe city (1991 pop. 353,904), capital of Santa Fe prov., NE Argentina, a river port near the Paraná, with which it is connected by canal. On the eastern margin of the Pampa, it is an important shipping point for the agricultural products of much of NW Argentina. The city also has some industry. Founded by the Spanish conquistador Juan de Garay (1573), Santa Fe was the site of the promulgation of the 1853 Argentine constitution. There are several notable churches and a national university.
The Province
Santa Fe is situated in the North of Argentine and divided in 19 regions, with its 133,007 Km2 it is the heartland of the Humid Pampas. After Buenos Aires and Córdoba it ranks third in population, reaching over 2,233,886. The capital has 1,233,88 inhabitants
In the North the province borders/ limits with the Chaco province, in the East with Corrientes and Entre Ríos, south with Buenos Aires, and West Santiago del Estero and Córdoba.
The territory is an impressive plain slightly tilted Northwest/ Southeast with an altitude ranging from 10 to 150 metres above sea level. In the Northwest area the land is low, at the east the Paraná river meanders, sometimes overflowing and dramatically affecting the city, specially the suburban villages such as Verde Alto, a picturesque village on Isla Sirgadero. When the river raises the fishfolk evacuate their houses seeking refuge in Santa Fe city and returning and rebuilding when the floods recede.
The climate varies throughout the area, ranging from subtropical to mild climate.
The main activities of the area are cereal cultivation farming, but the industry sector is also highly developed and Santa Fe plays an important role in exporting the products of a large agricultural heartland, such as cereal, oil, milk, fridges, and building and distributing farm machinery.
In the north of the province the main activities are rice and cotton cultivation.
Tourism
Convento de San Francisco: This convent dating the XVII century, has walls over a meter thick, and the hand-worked doors are original Indian handicraft. Like other colonial churches, the building’s floor plan duplicates de Holy Cross.
The church also keeps the coffin of Santa Fe’s caudillo, Estanislao López.
Rosario
With 900,000 inhabitants, it is the 3rd major city in Argentine. Rosario is also know as the ‘Cuna de la Bandera’ (Cradle of the flag) where the National Monument to the Flag was built by the architects Angel Bustillo and Angel Guido. It is a 78 mts. high tower, where Manuel Belgrano, designer of the flag, rests in a crypt. It’s museum keeps the original flag embroidered by Catalina Vidal. Every June, the city celebrates La Semana de la Bandera (the week of the flag), and the first week of October Rosario holds it’s own Semana del Rosario.
Santa Fe city
Well worth seeing is the Museo Histórico Provincial Brigadier General Estanislao López, this museum contains exhibits on the 19th century civil wars, period furniture and religious art amongst other displays.
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