Travel Eye on Buenos Aires (Argentina)

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Overview:

Buenos Aires is the third largest city in South America and comprises 47 barrios (neighbourhoods) in which nearly three million people live. This complex, energetic, and seductive port city, which stretches south-to-north along the Rio de la Plata, has been the gateway to Argentina for centuries. Portenos, as the multinational people of Buenos Aires are known, possess an elaborate and rich cultural identity. They value their European heritage highly--Italian and German names outnumber Spanish, and the lifestyle and architecture are markedly more European than any other in South America. One of the world's finest opera houses, the Teatro Colon, flourishes here on the plains alongside the river. Portenos are intensely involved in the life and culture of their city, and they will gladly share the secrets of Buenos Aires if you lend an ear and relate your own stories in return.

Downtown Buenos Aires is as sophisticated as any European city, with its wide avenues, fine colonial architecture and rows of pavement cafes. The city was built by French, Italian and Spanish immigrants and the Porteños (locals) still regard themselves as more European than South American. Those taking a walk through the leafy parks and boulevards could be forgiven for thinking they were in Madrid, Paris or Milan.

Buenos Aires was founded on the shores of the Rio de la Plata in 1570 and was named after the patron saint of sailors for the good wind or buen aire. However the city remained a colonial backwater for 200 years - the Spanish concentrated their attentions on wealthier Peru while Buenos Aires became a thriving centre for smuggling between South America and Europe. Dissatisfaction with Spanish economic and political dominance led to revolution in May 1810 and finally to independence in 1816. History since then has been dogged by military coups and political mismanagement; the result of this is that many of the city's residents live in shantytowns.

Locality:

Buenos Aires is situated in the east of Argentina beside the Rio de la Plata and surrounded by seemingly never ending flat land known as the Pampas , the vast sprawling conurbation is a true 24-hour city - there is always something going on to occupy the senses.

Entertainment/Facilities/Attractions/Things to do:

This turbulent history has not managed to stifle the indominatible spirit of the Porteños whose passion, charm and vibrancy have forged this great city where the romance of Evita and the tango lives on.

Buenos Aires' physical structure is a mosaic as varied and diverse as its culture. The city has no dominating monument, no natural monolith that serves as its focal point. Instead, Buenos Aires is composed of many small places, intimate details, and tiny events and interactions, each with a slightly different shade, shape, and character. Glass-sheathed skyscrapers cast their slender shadows on 19th century Victorian houses; tango bars hazed with the piquant tang of cigar smoke face dusty, treasure-filled antique shops across the way.

The city's neighbourhoods are small and highly individualized, each with its own characteristic colors and forms. In the San Telmo district, the city's multinational heritage is embodied in a varied and cosmopolitan architecture - Spanish Colonial design couples with Italian detailing and graceful French Classicism. La Boca's pressed tin houses are painted a rainbow of colors, and muralists have turned the district's side-streets into avenues of color.

For all its diversity, the elusive spirit of Argentina as a country is present everywhere in Buenos Aires. The national dance, the tango, is perhaps the best expression of that spirit--practiced in dance halls, parks, open plazas, and ballrooms, it is a dance of intimate separation and common rhythm, combining both an elegant reserve and an exuberant passion.