Parque San Martin, Mendoza

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This park is the biggest and most beautiful of Mendoza. It was designed by french architect Carlos Thays, and opened in 1906 (although its origins go back to 1896). The park has beautiful streets and avenues surrounded by hundreds of species of plants and trees.

Inside the park there are several fountains, sculptures, gardens, and even the Mendoza zoo, which is worth visiting. There's also an artificial lake next to the Rosedal, which is used by the Mendoza Boat Race Club (Club de Regatas de Mendoza).

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Parque San Martin is the biggest park in Mendoza, stretching out in it's west.

You can do a lot of things there, strolling around and explore it's inumerous plants and trees.

Or, just sit, relax, read and ovserve at the lake shore, under nice flowered arcades :-)

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Mendoza is a green city, having trees lining most of the streets.
In addition, it offers many parks to rest, the biggest one being Paque José Francisco San Martin.
It was designed in 1897 by Carlos Thays and with it's 420 hectars is the home of around 50.000 trees, a big lake, a rose garden and several sports centers (tennis, regatta, football, etc).
There is a zoo, and of course, famous Cerro de la Gloria - with the monument to the army of San Martin, the south american hero from Argentina.

The picture has been taken at the lake, with a fantastic view to the precordillera (up to 3000 m high mountains).

Our City tour then continued onward through the other Plazas in the 'new' centre of Mendoza (more to come on those later) as well as it's other attractions. By noon, we had crossed the city from east to west and were now in the huge Parque San Martin, which covers the whole western slopes of the city.

This Parque starts out with a very impressive gate donated by Britain (I did not get a picture because the tour van did not stop) which leads into various treed avenues and grassed parklands. A 1.1-km long artificial lake also serves as the anchor for the Mendoza Yacht Club building!

By the way, San Martin is to Argentinians what Washington is to Americans, and he is simply known as 'The Liberator'. You will see his name honoured everywhere in the country. He was born in colonial Argentina in 1778, the son of a junior officer in the Spanish army. After being sent to Buenos Aires and then Spain for military training, he fought with the Spanish army against Napoleon in the wars of 1808-11. It was during this time of upheaval that the Argentine colonists rebelled against Spain and San Martin returned home to join them.

OK, Mendoza is not the loudest city of all, but anyway it has a huge park at the western end of the town, where you can relax on the green and make a rest of the noise. Within the parks are several cafes, museums, the zoo, the football stadium and the Cerro de la Gloria, which you can climb up. The park also contains an impressive variety of trees and a small lake.

From the gates until the far perimeters of this 500 acres beautiful lush green park you will be impressed. Especially when Mendoza is a semi-desert climate, one can only imagine how much effort it took the make it look like what it is today...apparently, every dingle tree was planted by hand and needs special attention...beautiful fountains, lake and the statue on the cierro make some of the highlights!!

The forested park San Martin is very extensive, full with lakes for rowing, treelined streets and trails to walk around.