City Tour

We took a tour of the city Monday. Our guide was Regula the wife of Pablo, our tango instructor. It was great to take a tour with someone who was very knowledgeable of prominent sites and their history.

We began the tour by taking a city bus to Plaza de Mayo. The plaza is the historic core of the city and is the political heart of Argentina. It is bordered by government and public buildings including the Casa Rosada, the Metropolitan Cathedral and the Cabildo, which was the original seat of the city government. The Plaza de Mayo serves as a forum for demonstrations and protests. We saw parts of a demonstration last Wednesday. We were eating lunch in a local restaurant and saw crowds of people waving Argentinian flags and banging on drums as they marched toward Plaza de Mayo.

Following the Plaza de Mayo we went by taxi to the Cementario de la Recoleta. This is a unique cemetery that is like a city with small ornate houses and very quiet neighbors. There are about 4,800 vaults including those of many prominent figures of Argentine history such as Evita Peron.

After wandering Recoleta, we took another taxi around an area of the city known as Palermo Chico. There are many large mansions here that date from the end of the 19th century. Several of these are now foreign embassies.

We continued in the taxi to the Retiro Train Station. This station was built by British engineers at the end of the 19th century. It is quite impressive and still servers as a major commuter terminal coming into the city center.

We then went to Puerto Medero which is being developed into a commercial center. This was the major port for Buenos Aires until it proved too small to handle the large modern container ships. It was abandoned for several decades and is now enjoying a revival with many shops, hotels and office buildings being built.

We ended our tour at the La Boca district. La Boca was the main point of entry for immigrants at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Since there are no stones native to Buenos Aires immigrant houses were generally built of corrugated metal. Some of the original houses remain. Part of La Boca, El Caminito, has been developed into a tourist center with brightly colored shops along a pedestrian walkway.