Buenos Aires
As you may have already guessed by the enthusiasm in every Buenos Aires post so far, I absolutely love this capital city. I would go as far as to say it’s been my favourite city of the trip and definitely somewhere I could live. Apart from the fact that it is famous for; steak, red wine, ice cream, and our new found love ‘dulce de leche’, I almost felt close to home, as many Argentinian’s will tell you that Buenos Aires is the ‘Europe’ of South America. A lot of citizens in Buenos Aires are of Italian or Spanish descent, and the locals really pride their capital on its likeness to Europe. The long boulevards are lined by Parisian style apartments, outdoor Italian coffeeshops and terraces full of life spilling onto the street. Because it is home to a large European population, it has a particularly dynamic feel. There are so many different district’s or ‘barrio’s’ in BA, and here were my favourites.
Most tourists opt to stay around the areas of Palermo and Recoleta and we split our time pretty evenly between the two. Recoleta is a beautiful suburb to wander through for the day as it is home to many Parisian style townhouses and rather posh boutiques. If you find yourself in the area, a day is well spent enjoying coffee or lunch at La Panera Rosa on Avenida Pres. Manuel Quintana, then wandering through the park across to the famous well-kept cemetery. Close by is also the fine arts museum, one of Argentina’s oldest museums. It’s a great way to spend a couple of hours, and best of all, for visitors on a budget, admission doesn’t cost a penny. Our favourite street in Recoleta was Avenida Alvear, a decadent, idyllic street with some of the most ornate European architecture in Buenos Aires. Recoleta also has a famous shopping mall, with a stretch of restaurants on the street below all with beautiful sunny terraces.
Palermo is a trendy suburb which is full of eclectic restaurants, lively cocktail bars and small, edgier boutique shops. Plaza Serrano is the square in the middle in which all the bars are full of life at the weekends. We also stumbled upon an outlet shopping mall called Los Arcos, full of designer shops with slashed prices. It also has lots of food stalls and coffee shops, so a very easy way to spend an afternoon in Buenos Aires.
San Telmo is Buenos Aires’ bohemian district, with the most beautiful market that runs every Sunday. To find out more check out my other post on this specific suburb. Nearby to San Telmo is Florida Street, which is sort of like the Oxford Circus of BA, namely the main shopping street. At the end of it is Florida Garden, an old coffee shop which is always full of locals and has a really authentic feel to it. Also around this area is a restaurant called Campo dei Fiori, an Italian family run restaurant where they hand make the pasta in front of you.
Last of all, I absolutely fell in love with how active and on-the-go life in Buenos Aires is. On every street corner, the tango is alive and danced across the city. There are so many outdoor gyms dotted around the city’s parks, and you’ll always see people running along the Puerto Madero in the mornings and early evenings to catch the sunset. There are also so many sprawling parks across the city, like the Bosques of Palermo or the Plazas of Recoleta where you can find the Floralis Generica statue, which opens and closes depending on the time of the day and the position of the sun.
