We were met off our flight in Buenos Aires by a very lively lady called Sylvia who was interested to meet these mad English people who were staying for a whole 10 days without the aid of a prearranged tour group and with nothing organised! She sat us down once we got to the hotel and tried to give us the best advice with the aid of a map and half an hour on what we mustn’t miss out on. She talked pretty fast so managed to impart a lot of information. The hotel itself, the Elevage, on a bustling side street downtown is great. Much cheaper than just about any other hotel on the trip but with all comforts and a spacious room so we were very pleased. We were starving and everyone eats late here so at 10.30pm we headed down to the little hotel restaurant for a lovely meal. The food and the wine are incredibly cheap – at first we thought we must have got the exchange rate wrong with decent Malbec wine at about £6.00 a bottle in a hotel restaurant but it was correct. Definitely a great place for eating and drinking well without blowing the budget.
It’s a really lively city, unlike anywhere I’ve ever been before and although huge it’s all pretty flat so great for walking and since we’ve been here we’ve walked miles every day. With temperatures around 30 degrees we find it pretty easy to walk around since we’ve got used to things being a lot hotter most of the time though legs start to tire after about 3 hours and the need for a cold beer becomes paramount. Lots of interesting streets and buildings though no really iconic architecture or vistas which ‘place’ it in the mind. Of course there’s the ‘Casa Rosado’, the pink palace in the main square where Eva Peron (and Madonna in the film) addressed the crowds, the 9th July Avenue which bisects the city and is the widest street in the world and the huge domed congress building, but otherwise it’s a really interesting mix of buildings and lovely parks, not to mention some incredibly scruffy bits!
We walked down to Puerto Madero, the tarted up docks area, lined with lovely restaurants and home to the iconic bridge, said to represent a couple doing the tango and famous to anyone who’s ever worked for Euro RSCG as it was allegedly dreamed up by the Buenos Aires advertising agency as a way of promoting the area. The very first of Bob Schmetterer’s ‘Creative Business Ideas’. We returned in the evening to dine at one of the restaurants and enjoy a bottle of (Argentinean) champagne for just £15 a bottle.
On Sunday we visited San Telmo, the artistic area, with miles of street market selling every kind of art and craft and then an antiques market in the square, surrounded by cafes and with a band and dancers squeezed into one corner doing the tango. It was absolutely lovely. Close to our hotel is a beautiful shopping mall in a renovated building with huge murals on the ceiling and lots of little boutiques. What has rapidly become a favourite cafe of ours has a large space on the basement floor with great views of the murals and makes an excellent place to stop for a salad and a beer at lunchtime after lots of walking. Monday we walked over to Recoleta, a very chic neighbourhood and home to the famous cemetery. The cemetery is like a little town, all the well to do families have their own little ‘house’ with doors and windows and chapels. Some of the coffins are downstairs but others are actually on display through the door – strange. Eva Peron has her ‘chapel’ here and people come to light candles and make requests as if she were a saint.
Tuesday we decided to take the open top bus tour so that we could see things from another perspective and it also allowed us to get a good look at ‘La Boca’, a very colourful area but one we’d been warned not to wander around on our own. We got a really good feel for the city and got off in Palermo so that we could get a good walk around this area which is full of lovely restaurants, boutiques and pretty squares. Sylvia had recommended a restaurant up here so we headed there for lunch and it was spectacularly good. John had the most enormous steak ever and the meal came with endless little dishes of veg and salad accompaniments. We managed to stagger back to pick up the rest of the bus tour and didn’t need to eat anything else for the rest of the day!
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