City Tour

Today, during the tour arranged by our in-country program contacts Ani and Alex, we learned that Buenos Aires's European feel is due to the huge amount of Western European immigration (of people and ideas) into the city. Eighty-five percent of porteños are of Western European descent, mostly Spanish and Italian, and only fifteen percent are native to Argentina. The center of the city was planned after Paris, and thus has several Parisian parks and a grid street system. Porteños also love commemorating their heroes and revolutions. There was an equestrian statue or monument around every corner, and the widest road in Buenos Aires and the world (except for maybe one in China, says Tina our tour guide), is named Avenida 9 de Julio after Argentina’s independence from Spain.

The city is huge—3 million people downtown, 13 in the metropolitan area, a third of Argentina’s population—and therefore has very diverse neighborhoods. Driving we were able to visit a few and even get out and walk around. We began with lunch at the famous Café Tortoni, pictured above. I ate my first Argentinean steak! It was delicious. Everyone thought so, including Elena who was a vegetarian before today. Then we all had flan with dulce de leche, Argentina’s national sweet (score) and coffee, also pictured. Usually lunch is from 1-3 and dinner is from 8:30-10 (!). Our stomachs still start grumbling around 6 because everyone’s used to the dining hall’s 5:00-7:00 hours.

We drove through the Microcentro (or "centro"), the center of business activity and home of the pink executive building where Juan and Eva Peron addressed the crowds, then got off in San Telmo, an ex-aristocratic neighborhood that was vacated due to disease in the 1800s and then became tenement housing. One of these homes recently became an archeological site and we went inside and saw the many levels, the water collection system, and elaborate tunnels beneath—it was fascinating.

We then went to La Boca, the first port in the city and home to lots of immigrants and their famous fútbol team, the Boca Juniors Club. Tina said the people there will tell you first they are from La Boca, then they identify with the Boca Juniors, and thirdly, they are Argentinean. Although La Boca is a very poor area, it’s beautiful because the corrugated tin homes are brightly painted. Color stories: apparently the Boca Juniors got their blue and yellow colors from the flag of the next ship of immigrants coming into dock—turned out to be Sweden—and residents used extra paint from every ship for their exterior walls, choosing new colors based on what was available when their paint ran out. There is also a neat contemporary art museum there that I want to come back to.

The Argentine flag is on the right.


shadow of our group standing above the La Boca harbor

We passed through Puerto Madero, the second port that was abandoned until recently privatized by the government and that is currently undergoing massive development—very ritzy—and Puerto Nuevo, the port currently in use. We then visited Recoleta cemetery which was absolutely beautiful. The different tombs, houses of glass, stone, and sculpture, are arranged in city blocks with trees and public spaces in the center. They cut a very strange silhouette against the apartment buildings of the surrounding Retiro neighborhood. We saw the graves of Eva Peron and Jorge Luis Borges’s family. People had filled the iron slats of Evita’s tomb’s door with flowers.

"Familia Duarte" refers to Evita's family, who are all buried there together.

Our last stop was Palermo, the wealthy neighborhood to where many aristocrats fled when San Telmo became diseased. It includes a a media hub, Palermo Hollywood, a boutiquey area, Palermo Soho, Palermo Viejo where Borges and Chi Guevara both lived, most of the Embassies and ambassadors, and Malba, the museum at which I’m interning! Palermo is gorgeous—not in a huge houses way, but very nice large apartment buildings and public spaces and gardens—and last year’s group highly recommended the dining, shopping, and nightlife in that area.

street tango outside Recoleta

I hope you have enjoyed this summary of Buenos Aires neighborhoods. Gracias a Tina. I will have more personal stories that sound less like the guidebook soon, but I wanted to get all of this information in.