Iguazu

Buenos Aires 2011

In January, for the first time, my family traveled abroad with me. My mom always said she wanted to visit Buenos Aires and after some work (hard one actually), my sister and I convinced her it was time to make it happen.

It was my second time in the city, what was good because I already had a good idea of what was interesting to see, what they’d like and also how much time we needed for some of the attractions.

We only had four days, but we managed to see a lot anyway. Our first stop was at Plaza Francia. We went to Recoleta and to the street market they have on weekends. Just crossing the street, there is the Floralis Generica.

On our way back to the hotel, we walked around the neighbouhood Recoleta, passing in front of Brazilian and French Embassies. We walked on Cerrito Street, passed in front of Teatro Colón and went until Av Corrietes.

At Avenida 9 de Julio, close to the obelisk, look up. On the top of one of the buildings, there is a little house. I learnt that the man who built it was too lazy to walk home from work every day and just made his life easier moving to a house on the top of the place where he worked. But searching for more info, I read that the salesman Don Rafael Diaz actually wanted to have a little cottage in heaven.



Going on, we reached Casa Rosada. On weekend, they have a guided tour each ten minutes. It was in Spanish, but not much was spoken.



Second day was a bit slower. We took some nice walk on Puerto Madero. It’s a very fancy neighbourhood. Close to it, there is the Reserva Ecologica, where I took a very nice walk during my first trip.



Next stop was San Telmo. One can’t miss the street market on Sundays. There is a nice atmosphere and also some cool stuff to buy. I got my picture with Mafalda (Chile x Defensa) and another in front of the smallest house in Buenos Aires (San Lorenzo x Defensa).



This time I took a picture of the wind couple.

Lunch was at Habibi. Great arab food!



Being at San Telmo, I really needed to stop at Walrus bookshop, a very nice second-hand for books in english.

We had a shopping day. Many Brazilians travel to Buenos Aires just for this. And I didn’t do it during my first trip. This time, I found some cool stuff. There are many cool designers there, especially in Palermo.

El Ateno bookshop is considered one of the most beautiful in the world. It used to be a theater and nowadays one can have nice coffee and alfajor at the old stage.



The city is pretty flat, so it’s a great place to walk and just pay attention to the beautiful architecture. I took a nice zig-zag walk going down on Santa Fé Av., going up on Corrientes until the Congress and then down again on Avenida de Mayo and back to the hotel.



Café Tortoni is a nice place and has one of the best cheesecakes I’ve ever had. But the cappuccino isn’t any special.

P.S.: some pictures like the little house on the top of the building are missing because this is the second post I write about Buenos Aires.