Buenos Aires
You could confidently compare Buenos Aires to any city in the world and not find it wanting in any department. They say New York is a city where you can do anything, at any time of the day. This is probably the case with Buenos Aires, but the difference is that when Buenos Aires erupts, there is no other city like it.
Buenos Aires is the tenth largest city in the world, with three times more shrinks per capita than any other, arguably the best-looking people, almost as many plastic surgeons as found in Los Angeles, a population of porteños (‘people from the port’) who dance before going to work in the morning, and a culture of brick-thowing when football referees ‘misbehave’.
It might be fair to say that porteños are ever so slightly ‘loco!’. But that’s exactly why you’ll love them.
Bars, nightclubs, strip clubs – yes, for girls too – after-hours clubs, and endless shopping are only part of this city’s armoury. A hotel industry beginning find an identity, which seems to have embraced ‘urban minimalism’, and a restaurant trade adapting to a demand for alternatives to its incredible beef, mean the dynamism in BA has made it the continent’s must-visit city.
Since the devaluation of the Argentine peso against the US dollar in January 2002, there has been a 70% drop in the value of the currency, but equally there’s been a 70% rise in visitors coming to Buenos Aires, and tourism is now ranked alongside the country’s exports as a principal source of revenue.
Argentina is also the eighth largest country in the world, which means the majority of visitors to Buenos Aires don’t spend their entire trip here, but head out to explore this relatively untapped wilderness. Argentina boasts the world’s southernmost city, huge waterfalls, the continent’s only advancing glaciers, ski slopes, beaches, golf courses, polo clubs, and the widest river estuary on the planet. In this guide we have covered almost all of the activities on offer throughout the country, as well as discovering some of the best hotels and, of course, the Uruguayan beach resort of Punta del Este, which brims with Argentine party animals and beach beauties from the end of December to February.
Get some sleep before you arrive in BA, remember to leave room in your luggage for shopping and prepare to be exposed to a world of limitless hedonism in a country where it costs little to play hard.
La Boca and San Telmo
Time travel does exist in Argentina. Europeans arrived on boats, adapted their way of life and became porteños (people from the port): La Boca and San Telmo tell the story of this development and are the only time capsules in Buenos Aires where life doesn’t appear to have changed one bit. The barrios (neighbourhoods) lie side by side, south of Plaza de Mayo and east of Puerto Madero’s revamped docklands, and are now, quite understandably, a focal point for tourists.
La Boca, an area flanked by the mouth (boca) of the river, is characterized by the tango, multicoloured buildings (on El Caminito) and football. Although the dance was originally developed in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, La Boca is the world centre; sadly, however, it has now become such a tourist attraction that shows and dancing lessons are better in other areas of the city (see PARTY). La Boca is not the kind of place you go for a midnight stroll, but its portside buildings look timeless when the light hits the coloured façades in the morning before the tour buses arrive. This also the place where Diego Maradona, better than Pele at football in the eyes of every Argentine, played for Boca Juniors, a team you must go and watch at their beloved La Bombonera stadium.
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San Telmo is a slightly safer neighbourhood than La Boca, and houses many of the city’s backpacker hostels and larger, cheaper flats inhabited by bohemian porteños keen on turning old buildings into their private nightclubs. Named after Catholic priest Pedro Gonzalez Telmo, San Telmo is a maze of cobbled streets and crumbling mansions that once housed the city’s wealthiest families before the cholera and yellow fever outbreaks in the late 19th century. Buenos Aires, arguably, would not be the architectural jewel it is without San Telmo’s input. The hugely popular weekend antiques fair, Feria de Antiguedades, is held in Plaza Dorrego, although if you really want a taste of San Telmo, arrive during the week, before you are gobbled up by snap-happy tourists bearing ‘fannypacks’.
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Charmingly – or rather, alarmingly – both areas appear to be tumbling down. A few regeneration projects are currently under way to restore San Telmo in particular to its former glory. This is a neighbourhood living in the past, which is why San Telmo should take up at least a morning of your time in Buenos Aires. La Boca is a genuinely poor neighbourhood, and, to be honest, you only need to spend a couple of hours here to be satisfied you have seen everything.
Buenos Aires is a cosmopolitan city, and these two historic neighbourhoods, though rough around the edges, carry enormous significance in terms of Buenos Aires’ cultural identity.
Palermo Viejo, Palermo Chico and Villa Crespo
You could spend two weeks in this part of Palermo without surfacing for air, although the lack of ATM machines would eventually mean you’d have to take an hour off before diving straight back into what has become BA’s nocturnal party zone.
The important thing to realize is that Palermo Viejo and its immediate vicinity are where you will spend much of your time in Buenos Aires. The name is derived from the Franciscan abbey of Saint Benedict of Palermo (Saint Benedict the Moor), who lived from 1526 to 1589 and is a patron saint of Palermo in Sicily, whence many immigrants came in the late 19th century. It spans over 174 square kilometres, making it the largest barrio in Buenos Aires. Latterly more famous than Saint Benedict was Che Guevara, who lived here, as did Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina’s most famous author.
Argentines will be Argentines, however, and Palermo is now unofficially divided into smaller areas, which, to their credit, do actually help when you’re pinpointing where to meet for a drink, a shop or dinner.
The map for this area (see overleaf) predominately covers Palermo Viejo (Old Palermo) but also the bordering Palermo Chico (Small Palermo) and Villa Crespo areas.
Strictly speaking, Palermo Viejo – slightly older than the surrounding areas – is boxed in by Avenidas Santa Fe, Scalabrini Oriz, Córdoba and Juan B. Justo, while Villa Crespo lies west of Córdoba on the map and Palermo Chico is east of Santa Fe. Within Palermo Viejo is an area known as Palermo Soho, renamed in an attempt to make the trendiest blocks that border Juan B. Justo sound more exclusive. Plazoleta Cortázar (unofficially known as Plaza Serrano) is the central point of Palermo Soho, where hippie markets and art fairs take place at weekends.
It’s all more than a little confusing, but porteños will be impressed if you know the difference between Chico, Hollywood, Soho and Viejo.
The area centred on Plaza Palermo Viejo has exploded with life in the last decade: houses once used as mechanic’s workshops have become chic boutique hotels, old meat shacks have become cutting-edge fashion outlets and ex-cobblers have become Martini-sipping watering-holes, although the artisanal and bohemian edge lingers on.
With height restrictions on the buildings, Palermo Viejo is sensibly low-rise and in part the streets are still cobbled. The roads are flanked by ‘hole-in-the-wall’ asado eateries juxtaposed with elegant lingerie stores. Many of the houses have now been bought or rented by young designers and the like, but still the odd family who seem to have been caught in a time-warp for 50 years linger on, making a striking visual contrast with Buenos Aires’ young, affluent and attractive citizens buzzing around with shopping bags in hand, nodding away to the sounds of their iPods.
Palermo Viejo is an area on the move in Buenos Aires – an example of this city’s ever-changing culture – and it could make or break your stay here.
As for the neighbouring Villa Crespo (seen at bottom left of the map), it’s on the grittier side of Córdoba and, despite the presence of the highly rated bar 878 (see DRINK), and one of our favourite restaurants, Thymus (see EAT), the area has a way to go.
Palermo Chico, which ends at Avenida Sarmiento (at top right of the map), is one of the more affluent residential areas in the city and includes two wonderful restaurants, Guido’s Bar and Lucky Luciano (see EAT), owned by father and son respectively.
Finally, just north of Santa Fe beside Plaza Italia is Villa Freud, where most of Buenos Aires’ shrinks – of which there are more per capita than in any other city – are to be found.
Palermo Hollywood and Las Canitas
North of Juan B. Justo lies Palermo Hollywood, which, strictly speaking is part of Palermo Viejo but was renamed owing to the plethora of media companies in the area. Today, Hollywood is a darker, edgier and more playful barrio than its Palermo Viejo neighbour.
Gastronomically speaking, the area is home to Buenos Aires’ less traditional restaurants, essentially meaning there is less beef on the menu: principally, there’s the Peruvian-Japanese fusion Osaka, and South East Asian restaurants Green Bamboo and Sudestada (see Eat).
Although not a part of town for sightseeing, Palermo Hollywood is beginning to attract more boutique shops, and the row of bars on Honduras Street is growing daily. The most influential addition to the area came with the opening of Home Hotel (see Sleep), which has to be one of the top boutique hotels. Do also consider Sunday brunch at Olsen (see Eat) and a visit to Lobby wine bar (see Drink). There are more hotels under construction in the area, so check our website for updates.
North of Palermo Hollywood, facing the race track and nestled behind the Campo Argentino de Polo, where the jaw-dropping Argentine Open is played during November and December (see PLAY), is Las Cañitas, a former slum but now home to a strip of bars and restaurants on Baez street that attracts drinkers from Palermo’s various enclaves and neighbouring Belgrano.
Las Cañitas is home to various boutique shops, most notably Rapsodia (see Shop), which has, in the minds of most Argentine men, revolutionized the way women wear jeans. Although the area is always busy in the evenings, there is the slightest hint that this area is now a little passé. In-the-know, snobby Argentines will tell you that the difference between Las Cañitas in 2003 and Las Cañitas today boils down to the number of chetos (nouveau riche) and togas (slang for gatos, the ‘bridge and tunnel’ element) that turn up and strip the area of its finesse. While this may be true, it doesn’t matter – Las Cañitas is an amusing initiation into Buenos Aires’ punishing nightlife, particularly during the week, when bars such as Kandi (see Drink) fill to bursting with hundreds of young divas.
To the north-west of Las Cañitas and Palermo Hollywood is Belgrano (not on the map), which is a quieter area of the city but nevertheless useful for unwinding: seek out My BA Hotel (see Sleep) and one of our favourite bars, Puerta Uno (see Drink).
Recoleta, Retiro and Palermo
f Palermo Viejo is style city and La Boca is tango central, then Recoleta is the ‘dollars-under-the-mattress’, ‘anyone-for-tea?’ part of town.
Unquestionably the most affluent, European zone of Buenos Aires, a fact that is mirrored by the stunning French architecture housing beautifully pampered residents, this is where the majority of the city’s luxury hotel accommodation is to be found. Although lacking the onda (vibe) of the boutique hotels in Palermo Viejo and recent chic hotel openings to the centre, the best part of Recoleta – the area boxed in between Avenidas 9 de Julio, Las Heras, Pueyrredon and Libertador – is where you want to book your hotel room. Why? Well, first of all this area is the safest in Buenos Aires; second, the central location means that all barrios of the city are easy to reach; and third, it is the best-maintained area, despite the surprises pampered pets leave for pedestrians on the street.
Bolivian, Paraguayan or Peruvian maids will pop out of old French apartment buildings to hand the Labrador over to the dog walker, while young Argentines strut past, ice-cream in one hand, cell phone in the other, gabbling on about which house in Punta del Este to take on in the summer. Doormen line the streets, sweeping up the dust picked up by the designer shoes of the residents, and young businessmen, flowers under their arm, march past on their way to meet their girlfriend’s parents. Recoleta encapsulates Buenos Aires life at its most elegant.
To the east of Recoleta is Retiro, an area focused around Plaza San Martin, where jacaranda trees blossom from October to November. The plaza is overlooked by the Kavanagh Building, which was the highest in South America when built in 1935. While Recoleta’s main attraction has to be its cemetery (see Culture), Retiro is an important part of the city because of its British-built railway station, while its monuments – such as the Malvinas Memorial (see Culture) – are also important. For art fanatics, Arroyo street is impressive, while the Sofitel (see Sleep) is an extremely civilized place to stay.
To the west of Recoleta is the start of the barrio Palermo, another wealthy residential part of town, the largest in the city but without the abundance of French architecture to match Recoleta’s elegance. Hedonistically speaking, Palermo’s Alto Palermo shopping centre (see Shop) and the Spanish restaurant Oviedo (see Eat) are the highlights of this area, although the vast parks along Avenida del Libertador give the porteños a rural grounding among the speeding traffic.
