BUENOS AIRES
Hit the highlights with online itineraries and the city’s free app.
Buenos Aires may be known for its Neoclassical architecture and tango, but the capital of Argentina also boasts impressive urban art, trendy wine bars and high-end shopping. Luckily, the city makes it easy to explore its top attractions by providing a downloadable itinerary on its tourism website (turismo.buenosaires.gob.ar) or on the city’s free tourism app, available from your favorite app store. Depending on current local health concerns, the city also hosts free walking and biking tours.
Whichever method you choose for exploring the city, Plaza de Mayo proves a good starting point. The plaza’s most striking building, Casa Rosada, the pink palace from which Juan and Eva Perón addressed the masses, typically offers free guided tours in English on Sundays with an advance reservation. Even when you can’t get in, though, Free Walks Buenos Aires leads tours in English on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Free Walks Buenos Aires also gives free tours of Recoleta Cemetery, where you can pay your respects to famous artists, writers and political figures, including Eva Perón. You can visit El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a theater-turned-bookstore, and Teatro Colón on your own, though. In the past, Teatro Colón offered guided tours for a fee, but for now you’ll have to attend a performance at the renowned opera house to see its opulent interior.
If you prefer to explore neighborhoods (Buenos Aires boasts 48 barrios), don’t miss La Boca’s colorful buildings or San Telmo’s colonial architecture and tango dancers. The largest neighborhood, Palermo, offers the city’s best street art, boutiques selling South America’s hippest fashions, wine bars and vermuterias specializing in vermouth-based aperitifs. The city’s app and its online itinerary provide tips on things to do in each neighborhood as well as suggestions for where to shop and eat.
The app will also direct you to some of Buenos
Aires’ best parks, most designed by French-born landscape architect Carlos Thays. To appreciate his work, stroll through Jardín Botánico, an 18-acre garden with 5,000 species of plants and a greenhouse imported from France in 1900. Or explore Parque Tres de Febrero with its lake, sculptures and more than 8,000 roses.