Getting to Buenos Aires 
and a double dose of City Tours

Whilst travelling by air is undoubtedly the quickest way from A to B, it came as a bit of a shock when, after 12 hours travelling, we had still only got from Manchester to Madrid (x miles). Once aboard the Aerolineas Argentinas flight to Buenos Aires it was only a mere 11 hours later that we arrived in that capital city.

Having checked into the hotel (Claridge Hotel, Tucaman) which was very central, we fancied a coffee, so hit the town - however, being Sunday morning and only about 10am, not a lot was open despite walking a little way down the shopping street "Florida". However, we did find something in the Gallerias Pacificos food hall and had a very nice cafe latte, after which we returned to the hotel and crashed out for a couple of hours before beginning our own city tour.

City Tour

This gave us a good feel of the city as it allowed us to see some of the major sights and also get the general ambience of Buenos Aires. Fortunately, that ambience did not involve a great deal of exhaust fumes, as the roads were fairly clear - you recall that today is Sunday.

We left the Hotel at about 1.30pm and went for lunch at the Gallerias Pacificos before doing some serious sightseeing. The route taken was a mixture of walking and Subte (underground railway) - so after lunch we walked to:

• Teatro Colon: We have a book "Wonders of the world" in which this is featured. Not quite sure why as the outside is not particularly imposing, and the inside looks a lot like an opera house (wonder why?). The tours of the inside were on the hour and we just caught the last one - it lasted about an hour including looking around the foyer afterwards at the various documents, costumes and instruments (including a Stradivarius violin).
• Av. Nueves de Julio (9th of July Avenue): Billed as the widest street in the world this is one of the major thoroughfares of Buenos Aires on which the above theatre is located as well as the imposing obelisk at Plaza de la Republica. This "obelisco" stands on the spot where the flag of the independent republic of Argentina was first flown.
  Crossing the road here can be a nightmare, but its Sunday so it was no big deal.
• Diagonal Roque Saenz Pena: This is the direct route from the obelisk to Plaza de Mayo
• Plaza de Mayo: This major square, as well as having an obelisk (the Pyramide de Mayo), has two sights of interest to us:
  • The Cathedral: This contains the tomb of San Martin, whose name continually appears as you travel around the City. See a statue - if in doubt its probably San Martin.

  • Casa Rosada: This is the pink building at the end of the square and to any fan of musicals needs no introduction. It was one of the places we were quite keen to have a look at - and to take a picture "outside the Casa Rosada crying Eva Peron", though it wasn't entirely clear from which balcony she, and other famous people, made their appearances. There are tours around parts of the Casa Rosada, but not for us at this moment, we settled for a walk around the outside - the back is nothing like as pink as the front!

• Palacio del Congresso: A Subte ride away from Plaza de Mayo straight down Av. de Mayo brought us to the congress building and its associated Plaza, at the bottom of which we boarded the Subte again for Retiro station. Following a brief excursion to view the Rio de la Plata, we returned to our sightseeing agenda.

• Torres de los Ingleses: This, according to the guide book, is a replica of Big Ben. The area is now (post-Falklands conflict) renamed Plaza Fuerza Aerea Argentina (Air Force Plaza). This Plaza is adjacent to Plaza San Martin where the war memorial is located.

• Malvinas War Memorial: We listened to "The Last Post" being played and watched the Argentinian flag being lowered before viewing the memorial.

Time and fatigue is getting the better of us so we begin to wend our weary way back to the hotel walking down the main shopping mall, Florida, stopping off at the Gallarias Pacificos for another one of those nice cafe lattes. At 8.00pm, there is a "Tango show" programmed for the food mall, so we hang around to watch that. It is a sort of Tango tea dance for the locals and consists of some demonstration dancing (and dramatic singing) followed a bit of a free for all tango dancing while the band plays. Quite enjoyable really.

Eventually get back to the hotel about 9.30pm after a very long day. Tomorrow is the formal city tour.

City Tour v.2

Next morning, before we can set off on the bus tour (at 10.30) we have to find a shop that can replace the battery in my watch, which records temperature and pressure, which I brought specially for the Antarctic bit of the trip! 
We did eventually find a Casio repair shop (what luck) and got it done before getting the bus for the "official" city tour.

The bus tour followed part of the route we did yesterday, except that it was all done out of the bus window - Teatro Colon, Obelisco and the Diagonal avenue to Plaza de Mayo, where there is a 15 minute stop to take it all in! 

Pointing to Plaza del Congresso a mile or so away down Av. del Mayo, the bus takes to the back streets, in the guise of old Bs As where the Tango originated, though the streets are so narrow that looking out the window you can't see much. From here we travel to La Boca and hear about the history behind the Boca Juniors football team before having only 15 minutes to look round and view the interesting streets and buildings - albeit designed almost entirely for tourists - before returning to the meeting point. Unfortunately the bus didn't turn up for another 15 minutes (at least) so we could have had longer to ourselves which would have been most welcome!.

Last stop on the tour is Recoleta and in particular the cemetery - final resting place of, among many other, Eva Peron (Evita) in the Duarte family grave.  One of the plaques  for Evita (30yrs after her death) begins with the phrase "Me no llores" - Don't cry for me. (Cue for a song?)

From the cemetery, the bus took us directly to the domestic airport for our onward flight to Ushuaia.

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