Travel Tips for Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is a city...
by surfboy
Buenos Aires is a city everyone enjoys, one of the World’s cosmopolitan cities, it is a bustling centre of business, commerce, industry, culture, and government.
With nearly 10 million inhabitants, there are many different facets to Buenos Aires, some districts are humming with activity, people going about their business or people having a good time.
Other districts are blissfully quiet, with little shops and people in the plazas.
Porteños (as citizens of Buenos Aires are called) love to be outside, enjoying the weather, sitting in parks or plazas, window-shopping, chatting over a coffee or drink, going out for a meal with the family. There are many fine boutiques, shops, elegant shopping centres, art museums, small plazas, big parks, even a 300 hectare nature reserve with over 100 species of birds
There are hundreds of restaurants (mostly serving varieties of European cuisine, though there is a growing number of Asian restaurants), open till the last guest goes home, cafes, pubs, and the unique and sensuous Tango show, the music, song and dance of Buenos Aires!!
Porteño pointers
by TheWanderingCamel
Locals in Buenos Aires refer to themselves as Porteños (people of the port), and take great pride in their city having quite a different feel, look and sound to every other city in South America - and it does. Spanish not only sounds different here - both words used and their meanings can be different too. The wealth and sophistication of the good times of the past shows in the grand buildings that could just as easily be in France or Vienna as here in South America. It's a city with a vibrant 24-hour a day beat to it. It's big, exciting, glamorous, sophisticated and yet there are aspects that are charmingly old-fashioned and intimate. There's no way you can hope to come to grips with it all in one visit or twenty - the basic rule for beginners is to relax and take time to enjoy simply being here.
Rule 2 - Eat late or eat alone - the only people in restaurants before 10pm are tourists.
Rule 3 - Dress well. Smartly casual, clean and well groomed will take you almost anywhere, scruffy is just not Porteño style.
Rule 4 - Make sure you have small notes and coins on you for taxis, tips, buses, small purchases, etc. No-one ever has change for big bills.
Rule 5 - Be prepared to be flattered/charmed/flirted with and for it to mean zilch - the Irish call it blarney - here they call it "chamuyo" (cha-ma-szho) and Porteños are the masters of it.
Rule 6 - If you can't get there by walking, use the subte whenever you can - it covers much of the city, is faster than anything above ground, cheaper than taxis, clean and safe.
Rule 7 - Only ever use a Radio Taxi - it will be marked as such. If one stops and it's not a Radio Taxi - don't get into it!!! Send it away, wait, hail another one,walk - whatever - just don't take that one.
Rule 8 - Pronounce "ll" and "y" as "zh" - it's "Plaza Ma -zho" and chicken is pozho.
Rule 9 - Say ciao instead of adios.
Quinquela Martin
by sof76
Benito Quinquela Martin fue pintor, grabador y muralista. Nacio en Buenos Aires el 1? de marzo de 1890 y murio en la misma ciudad el 28 de enero de 1977. De origen muy humilde, abandonado por sus padres en el Hogar de los Expositos, pasa sus primeros seis a?os en el Patronato de la Infancia hasta que lo adopta el genoves Chinchella, con carboneria en la Boca. Mientras trabajaba en labores portuarias descargando carbon, concurre de noche a una modesta academia de dibujo del barrio de la Boca, por lo que debe abandonar sus estudios primarios. Pero termina a los pocos a?os exponiendo con gran exito en toda America y Europa.
Es el pintor del Riachuelo, no solo por ser el primero que desarrollo su labor tratando los temas de la zona, sino por el caracter inconfundible de su obra. En telas de grandes proporciones reflejo escenas portuarias y de los astilleros, dandoles una fuerte expresion de actividad, de vigor, de aspereza, como muestra de la vida de las primeras decadas del siglo pasado en la zona boquense. Estuvo, como pocos, ligado profundamente a su ambiente, a la vida cotidiana de donde era. Pinto el trabajo del hombre comun de su epoca, las calles del hombre comun, los cielos de esos hombres y construyo, con un lenguaje sin hipocresias pero cargado de metaforas, dia a dia, una obra que lo convirtio en un artista fenomenal.
Sus obras resultan un canto al trabajo, resuelto con un lenguaje de lectura clara y a traves de un uso prodigioso del color. Ese mismo color que finalmente desbordo el marco necesariamente limitado de sus obras y se volco sobre todo al barrio de la Boca. El gris de la niebla y el negro del humo y del carbon que hasta entonces dominaban cromaticamente a la Boca fueron desalojados del barrio por la brillante inspiracion de Quinquela, quien termin? movilizando a todo el barrio en su cruzada por el color.
Autopista 25 de Mayo : source of inspiration!
by ptitetoile
Driving on the highway from the Airport to Buenos Aires is already an experience!!!!!
Feelings and impressions came naturally in my head and mixed themselves to build an irresistible need to express this powerful sensation!
First, there is incredible green of the trees and the grass just after the airport...an "apple green"...I had never seen that (Maybe was that because it was winter in Belgium?)
Then , there it is : the big city ! The highway penetrate in the suburbs, dividing the city immensity in two different parts. It is like a zipper separating the buildings tissue extending till the end of the horizont, in an indescriptible chaos of small, high, large, narrow, grey, white constructions. A chaos that is so "chaotic", that there is a kind of harmony of the chaos, which is not chocking anymore but fascinating, the eye wanting to see always further behind the buildings... And at the same time, there is the feeling that the taxi rides into "nothing".
Straight ahead... there is the sea...better the Rio de la Plata, I know it... But still, as the highway seems now to climb on the buildings to find its way in a blue sky background, it creates a feeling of "end of the world!
But suddently the taxi rides out of the highway, leaving me hungry for more. I don't know yet how is life under the road...but I will discover it soon and see the end by myself some days later...
Antiques & Crafts
by andal13 about La Feria de San Telmo
Every Sunday, at Plaza Dorrego (Dorrego Square), San Telmo, an open market takes place. More than a shopping tip, it is a must.
Cada domingo, en Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo, tiene lugar una feria o mercado abierto. Más que un consejo de compras, es una actividad obligada. There, you can find almost everything, but mainly antiques and handicrafts.
Allí pueden encontrar prácticamente de todo, pero principalemente antigüedades y artesanías.
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Cafe Tortoni
Some more frescos
Beef and Mushrooms
outside view
