Thursday 9th February 2017 - Buenos Aires
This morning’s start was a bit sluggish. We thought we would not be affected by the flight as the time difference was only 3 hours but we were. After breakfast, we were met by Maria, our larger than life, full on, bouncy guide and mafia look alike driver for what was supposed to be just a 3 hour intro to the city. As it turned out, they had not realised how slow Steve and Janette travelled and dawdled so their programme was shot from the outset.
It became clear to us that Buenos Aires was in fact a most spectacular city, with extremely friendly and helpful people and more than that, the architecture was varied and on occasion quite breath-taking with mixes of modern, post-war and classical Spanish and French styles. We knew we had not allocated enough time.
For some reason our lift carried a list of famous Argentinian Actresses which oddly included porn stars
A jaunt around Catholic Church of Iglesia Nuestra Senora Del Pilar (catholic church for short) revealed a house of worship seriously not short of gold.
Built in 1732 and the second oldest church in Argentina. Situated on the northern Plaza Mayo and conveniently situated next to the arguably the most famous graveyard.
Steve does have unusual travel requests and he loves ruins and graveyards. The cemetery at Recoleta district was number one on his list. The walk through the Northern Barrio region’s Plaza Mayo to possibly the most interesting cemetery in the world was quite interesting but for the height of the tourist season there seems little going on.
The Recoleta cemetery was a stunning collection of stone mausoleums laid out like a city in a labyrinth of paths. It is for residents of the area of Recoleta although most are rich, powerful and famous. It was originally a site of a cemetery for the poor, but they soon got ousted ! After the 18th century, the rich and famous dead replaced the poor graves and what sprung up over 300 years kept stone mason in business for ever. Once a rich person had had his mausoleum constructed, his family had entitlement to be buried there and as a result, each mausoleum had many wood coffins behind the doors some of which were glass for all to see. The perfect start to your day.
Now, obviously, if you are European, you come to see the Mausoleum of Eva Peron because you had seen the film or play but if you are Argentinian, you will be coming to pay respects to military generals who have shaped the history of the country and sorted out the workers. More on Eva Peron (Evita) later but suffice to say that she is not actually in the family Mausoleum but buried six feet under the path where everybody stands without realising it.
Argentina has, for most of its history been all about people’s rights and during the period 1870 to 1920s, a group of wealthy business and academic people formed a group called the Generation 80. This is when Argentina reached out the trade with the world and brought the country great prosperity. This period was called the Argentinian "belle epoque".
As a result of this – all the founding members of this group are here still in their coffins.
Changes in politics brought about the county’s decline through corruption again and even as late as two years ago, the president was caught with her hands in the till reversing the growth by her late husband.
A tour around this graveyard and the research of its inhabitants will provide all there is to know about the history of Argentina.
For some light relief, we jumped in the Mafia car and went to the Teatro Colon or as Steve
called it the Colonoscopy Theatre as he through it was named after an internal organ but apparently named after Christopher Columbus. The most famous building in Argentina apparently and built in 1908 with passenger lifts and air conditioning remarkably and passage ways under the floor so the sound came through air ducts. Few people come here and don’t visit this spectacular theatre. Being an opera house, one American tourist asked what the next event was and we assumed that he didn’t know much as he set off to book tickets for John Williams and a concert of movie themes ...God bless Americans!!
After so much culture, we went to an area La Boca area that was originally the immigrant area, home of the Boca Juniors football team and containing an area called El Caminito (little walkway).
This area, seemingly miles from anywhere seems to be an odd Argentinian “Camden” with brightly coloured houses, eclectic mix of hand made statues, give shops and tourist tat and called the little Italy of Buenos Aires. The origin of the bright colours comes from the olden day use of old ships paint and construction products to build the immigrant houses although it doesn’t say much for the colour of the ships 200 years ago !!
Having dispensed with our guide for the day, we went to the central government assembly building Casa Rosada where Eva Peron famously gave her public speeches from and also allowed Madonna to use it when shooting Evita. Walking back down the Avenue di Mayo, we had to go “dark” as we shimmied past the Falkland Island protest tent occupied by retired soldiers and already having seen the skull and cross bones on a UK flag, were not inclined to speak English at this point.
One of the most famous coffee shops in the country was next with Café Tortino on Avenue del Mayo. Like all coffee shops steeped in history, the waiter was old, grumpy and uniformed but we managed to get served eventually. The famous meeting place for the great and good in Argentina’s history.
The Oldest and most famous coffee shop, Cafe Tortini - Tons of histocal pictures and documents adorn the walls.
On the recommendation of our guide, we went on the see the weirdest book shop we had
ever seen, The Libraria El Ataneo. Oddly, this was originally a theatre and now, with its royal boxes used as reading rooms, the place is a strange place to buy books but there is probably not much in print that it doesn’t sell. In one of the boxes two older men were reading and we were struck by the similarity to Waldorf & Statler from the Muppets.
Steve was never one for soccer but with the local team Boco Juniors around the corner, he may have got interested again.
The area where the ground is is definitely not one to walk around .
Downtown Buenos Areas. A huge city and with a population of 8 million. Very sophisticated, edgy and the people were incredibly friendly towards us sometimes stopping to ask us if we needed help....usually we did.
Crime here is probably not recorded but every day someone told us to hide our cameras etc and quite literally, there were police on every street we walked down, even in remote areas.
The Casa Rosada is the Argentinian parliament building and the left hand balcony is where Evita gave her first speech mobilising the people and announcing that Peron would support the rights of the people. After she died, Juan Peron reverted to type and became a military dictator.
The only other person to have done a speech here is Madonna for the film Evita where she was given permission.
Once again, Eva Peron is pretty well covered here and this modern art work by a local artist has her time and date of death hidden in her hair which you can see with a camera zoom.
Out of this shot, was the balcony famous for her last speech and immortalised in the words in the play/film "dont cry for me Argentina". The video of the speech is in the Evita museum and was very moving as many hundreds of thousands of people had turned up to give blood following an appeal to safe her.
Sadly, at only 33 years old, she died from a sexually transmitted disease give to her by Juan Peron who had also killed his previous wife the same way
This morning’s start was a bit sluggish. We thought we would not be affected by the flight as the time difference was only 3 hours but we were. After breakfast, we were met by Maria, our larger than life, full on, bouncy guide and mafia look alike driver for what was supposed to be just a 3 hour intro to the city. As it turned out, they had not realised how slow Steve and Janette travelled and dawdled so their programme was shot from the outset.
It became clear to us that Buenos Aires was in fact a most spectacular city, with extremely friendly and helpful people and more than that, the architecture was varied and on occasion quite breath-taking with mixes of modern, post-war and classical Spanish and French styles. We knew we had not allocated enough time.
For some reason our lift carried a list of famous Argentinian Actresses which oddly included porn stars
 |
| A typical cheerful Catholic Church where everything is going well |
Built in 1732 and the second oldest church in Argentina. Situated on the northern Plaza Mayo and conveniently situated next to the arguably the most famous graveyard.
The Recoleta cemetery was a stunning collection of stone mausoleums laid out like a city in a labyrinth of paths. It is for residents of the area of Recoleta although most are rich, powerful and famous. It was originally a site of a cemetery for the poor, but they soon got ousted ! After the 18th century, the rich and famous dead replaced the poor graves and what sprung up over 300 years kept stone mason in business for ever. Once a rich person had had his mausoleum constructed, his family had entitlement to be buried there and as a result, each mausoleum had many wood coffins behind the doors some of which were glass for all to see. The perfect start to your day.
 |
| Evita |
Argentina has, for most of its history been all about people’s rights and during the period 1870 to 1920s, a group of wealthy business and academic people formed a group called the Generation 80. This is when Argentina reached out the trade with the world and brought the country great prosperity. This period was called the Argentinian "belle epoque".
As a result of this – all the founding members of this group are here still in their coffins.
 |
| The coffins of the Generation 80 behind doors |
Changes in politics brought about the county’s decline through corruption again and even as late as two years ago, the president was caught with her hands in the till reversing the growth by her late husband.
A tour around this graveyard and the research of its inhabitants will provide all there is to know about the history of Argentina.
For some light relief, we jumped in the Mafia car and went to the Teatro Colon or as Steve
 |
| Maredona, Evita and a famous Tango Singer whose name escapes us |
After so much culture, we went to an area La Boca area that was originally the immigrant area, home of the Boca Juniors football team and containing an area called El Caminito (little walkway).
This area, seemingly miles from anywhere seems to be an odd Argentinian “Camden” with brightly coloured houses, eclectic mix of hand made statues, give shops and tourist tat and called the little Italy of Buenos Aires. The origin of the bright colours comes from the olden day use of old ships paint and construction products to build the immigrant houses although it doesn’t say much for the colour of the ships 200 years ago !!
 |
| There are obviously quite a lot of references to the other local celebrity - The Pope |
 |
| Most of the tourists we meet were North and South Americans. We've seen few Europeans |
Having dispensed with our guide for the day, we went to the central government assembly building Casa Rosada where Eva Peron famously gave her public speeches from and also allowed Madonna to use it when shooting Evita. Walking back down the Avenue di Mayo, we had to go “dark” as we shimmied past the Falkland Island protest tent occupied by retired soldiers and already having seen the skull and cross bones on a UK flag, were not inclined to speak English at this point.
The Oldest and most famous coffee shop, Cafe Tortini - Tons of histocal pictures and documents adorn the walls.
On the recommendation of our guide, we went on the see the weirdest book shop we had
 |
| You can have a small snack any time here !! |
The area where the ground is is definitely not one to walk around .
Crime here is probably not recorded but every day someone told us to hide our cameras etc and quite literally, there were police on every street we walked down, even in remote areas.
The only other person to have done a speech here is Madonna for the film Evita where she was given permission.
Out of this shot, was the balcony famous for her last speech and immortalised in the words in the play/film "dont cry for me Argentina". The video of the speech is in the Evita museum and was very moving as many hundreds of thousands of people had turned up to give blood following an appeal to safe her.
Sadly, at only 33 years old, she died from a sexually transmitted disease give to her by Juan Peron who had also killed his previous wife the same way
 |
| Obviously, touching the Pope is not the done thing here
With very aching feet and the temperature rising through the afternoon from mid 20s to mid 30s, we went back for an hour chill out. Then it was out for our evening entertainment in trendy Palermo. Steve had to try the latest craze to hit Buenos Aires…craft beer..not Tango!. He sampled a few local brews including IPA and London Bitter, and then we went and faced our carnivore red meat feast and Malbec wine that Argentina is famous for. We went to a locally recommended Parrilla for the best steak ever eaten will probably mean we will not be able to eat it in any other country other than South America.
Parillas are really just neighbourhood steak houses and sell red meat by the truck load.
Stuffed full and completely knackered, half drunk, aching and with red meat blood pressure probably approaching 190/90 we were off to bed at 11.00pm just as local people for coming out to eat. 11.00 pm is the locals dinner time.
All images for individual days are here South America Image Files
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Great photos and commentary - I'm enjoying reading!
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