
Blessed Selfie In The Cathedral
Our Top Ten Favorite Places in BA:
1. Barrio San Telmo weekend market and street life - this place really personifies the joy, energy and creativity of the younger generation of portenos. The market is an eclectic mix of the handmade, used and antique. Music and dance echo through the cobbled streets and classic cafes are at almost every corner.
2. Barrio La Boca - the home of the sultry Tango, colorful corrugated working-class tenements on the mouth of the Rio Riachuelo. Touristy by day, in can be a bit dangerous at night, as several of the locals warned us.
Still a very lively place and one that would be worth spending more time exploring.
3. Teatro Colon - a magnificent monument to La Belle Epoch of Buenos Aires in the early 20th Century (it presented its first opera, Aieda, in 1908).
Its galleries and corridors ooze elegance and sophistication.
4. Museo National de Bellas Artes - a wonderful place to immerse yourself in the history of art and the history of art in Argentina. This is a modern and well laid out museum, with some fascinating paintings
5. Puerto Madero - a great place to walk in the evening to catch the buenos aires blowing in from the sea. Rows of restored and re-purposed nineteenth century warehouses contrast with the new glassy high rises and yachts in the basin. Plenty of choices of parilladas, restaurants, bars and clubs for whatever food or entertainment you’d like.
6. The Abasto market - very cool art deco central market from the 30’s repurposed into a mall for the working and middle classes. It’s a great place to see how the average porteno family spends the weekend. Lots of affordable stores, great food court and the amusement park at the top level is a sensory overload.
7. Ateneo Bookstore on Avenida Santa Fe. Constructed in one of BA’s elegant old theaters, you can browse their huge collection of Spanish-language books which are displayed on shelves from the mezzanine to the balconies, or savor it all from the coffee shop which is where the stage once used to be.
8. Club de La Milanesa, 2002 Vincente Lopez, Barrio Recoleta - We discovered this restaurant while looking for a vegetarian menu in the land of carne. In addition to a tempting list of traditional milanesas, which are usually a tasty breaded beef cutlet pan fried, this bistro also featured several types of vegetarian milanesas. We tried the soy and squash milanesas, and they were delicious. The salad was also an excellent mix of fresh vegetables, and if you order a Quilmes draft beer, there are free refills!
9. Strolling down Aveneda Del Libertador from the parks in Palermo to Museo National de Bellas Artes - On our last day in BA, we decided to pass on another foray into the bustling commercial districts in order to sample some of the large green areas in Barrio Palermo. It was a perfect day to just relax on a park bench under the natural shade of the trees. After re-charging our batteries for a few hours, we strolled down Aveneda Del Libertador. It’s a broad, tree-lined and busy boulevard, but the wide sidewalk is set back from the traffic and bordered by posh apartment buildings and the occasional embassy. It reminded me of the Champs de Lisee in Paris.
10. Buenos Aires on a Sunday afternoon - a great day for walking in the city; fewer pedestrians to compete with for sidewalk space and much less traffic on the streets mean less noise and pollution.