Artfully Ann's Adventures

Travel – March 6, 2014 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Seaman Juan Díaz de Solís, navigating in the name of Spain, was the first European to reach the area in 1516. From that point, the history of what eventually became Buenos Aires was quite complex, starting with early settlements that either failed outright due to attacks by native peoples, or that struggled fitfully under distant and unresponsive European administrations with the added burdens of off-shore pirates and extremely difficult supply issues.

One of Buenos Aires City Parks

By some measures, Buenos Aires is today one of the 20 largest cities in the world. It is a socially progressive, tolerant and vibrant city that is proud of its bit of distance from more traditional and conservative parts of South America. A “Happening Place” as we say!

We started off on our tour of Buenos Aires a little late, but eventually met our guide Patricia for a city tour. Most of the tour we ride in a large twelve person van-bus. Nice size group for this type of tour. John arranged the tour through Cruise Critic instead of the Prince Cruise tour organization. It is less expensive and has much better tour guides.

Patricia first took us to see a very large mechanical sculptured flower. It opens in the morning and closes at night. It is large and very impressive. The park was beautiful, even though Carnival was held there the day before. 

We spent a large amount of time at the country’s oldest cemetery where Evita and many other dignitaries, great and small, are buried. The crypts are old; many are very ornate. In the last case, piety and simplicity are ostentatiously, glaringly and outrageously incompatible.  

Monument Angel

Black Iris

I kept on clicking pictures and had a hard time keeping up with the group. This is NOT a place you would want to get lost in, or to be in after dark. BOOOOOooooo!!! Dracula is ready to come out of his crypt now. It was a beautiful place, but eerie as well.

An isle of crypts

For lunch, we visited the Boca district where there is a distinct Italian influence. We ate empanadas at an Italian Pizzeria, watched a professional couple tango and a man play the squeeze box. The streets were highly decorated, and there were outdoor shops with many leather, wool and glass items for sail.

Street art, Italian influence

Crocheted tree

Restaurant entertainment - Tango

Argentina has as their official government house Pink House instead of a White House. This is the building where Evita would stand at the balcony and talk to the

The Pink House, similar to our White House

crowds in the square below. Driving along some of the broad avenues, you see sites commonly used to portray large cities: lots of high rise buildings, cars and people. For the Argentinian children, this is the first day of the school year. All of the summer and holidays are over and it is back to the books. Just like home, with the kids and school comes the traffic. Just the week before, Patricia indicated that giving the same tour they were able to see more because the traffic was much less. Oh well, timing is everything!!

The pictures this time are a smattering of things we saw on this trip. By the time we were finished, we arrived back on the boat exhausted. All this fun stuff is wearing us down. WHEW!!!

We have Montevideo tomorrow. Please join us for more adventure.