1. CITY TOUR & SNACK AT CAFÉ TORTONI

It is usually said that Argentina is a melting pot where many races and peoples mix. This is especially true for Buenos Aires. And Avenida de Mayo and the Café Tortoni are a symbol of this mix.

Our journey starts at Plaza de Mayo, the city’s foundational site which from the beginning gathered around the country’s political and religious powers. There we’ll visit the Pink House, our Presidential Palace, the Cabildo, our primitive town hall, and the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Next we travel to San Telmo, a neighborhood that despite its Colonial architecture boasts a definitely modern and vibrant atmosphere. There, we visit its antiquarians and walks its cobbled street, admiring its peculiar architecture. At the heart of San Telmo lies the Plaza Dorrego, where every Sunday since 1970 a traditional antiques fair is held.

Avenida de Mayo is a beautiful tree-lined boulevard, built in the late 19th century to rival with Paris. It’s an immutable proof that cultural fusion is the cornerstone of Buenos Aires’ urban identity, not only for the eclectic style of the buildings but mainly for the fact that, as it’s usually said, it was built by Italians copying the French, to be inhabited by Spaniards. Indeed, the Spanish community rapidly took up the Avenue, and installed their cafés, restaurants and theatres, filling the air with their cheerful spirit. Arguably the most distinctive place in Avenida de Mayo is the Café Tortoni, located at the same building where the National Tango Academy operates. It portrays the fusion spirit so characteristically of Buenos Aires, since it was opened in 1858 (back then the entrance was located at Rivadavia Street) by a Frenchman named Touan, paying homage to the famous Parisian café named after an Italian. There we will not only enjoy a wonderful snack, but also we will learn about the place’s history through the memorabilia and photographs on the wall, and at the café´s old barber shop.

La Boca, our next stop, is a charming and colorful port district. The neighborhood’s distinctive personality is a result of the massive Italian immigration, mainly from Genoa, that settled there during the last decades of the 19th century. Arriving at La Boca, we’ll be surprised to see houses made out of tin and painted with the strangest colors: this is because the first immigrants built their homes with spare materials they found at the nearby shipyards and docks, using any leftover paint the could get.

Along the river we find Puerto Madero, the latest addition to the city’s barrios. It’s a large-scale urban planning project that started in 1991 with the revamping of a series of abandoned silos and warehouses on an old deep water port. If La Boca had caught our attention for its precarious constructions and its local color, Puerto Madero will catch our eye for its chic and international atmosphere.

Leaving the South behind, we visit the splendid Plaza San Martin, a testimony of our own Belle Époque. In our visit of Recoleta, we walk across Avenida Alvear, a true Parisian corner in Buenos Aires; Nuestra Señora del Pilar, a colonial church, Buenos Aires’ second oldest, and the Recoleta Cemetery, an aristocratic labyrinth of ornate mausoleums, and the final home of Argentina’s most relevant figures during the 19th and 20th centuries, strikingly including Eva Perón, known for her hatred towards the upper classes.
Ending our journey, we visit Palermo Chico, certainly Buenos Aires’ main source of fresh air, with over 50 hectares of woods, parks and artificial lakes. Next to the woods, we can find the sumptuous French palaces where the wealthier classes used to live. Nowadays, the buildings are mainly occupied by embassies and international organizations.

Itinerary: Montserrat – San Telmo – La Boca – Puerto Madero – Retiro – Recoleta – Palermo.
Approximate duration: 4 hours.
Included services:
• Bilingual guide specializing in Buenos Aires’ History, Arts, and Architecture.
• Transportation and transfers in a comfortable, top of the line vehicle. Uniformed driver.
• Snack at Café Tortoni.
• Brochure with extended information of the tour and Buenos Aires postcard.

Note: On Sunday you will have time to visit San Telmo Flea Market

> FARES
> isfg2009@ontheway.com.ar

2. CITY TOUR & VISIT TO ANTIQUARIANS

In this tour, besides visiting Buenos Aires’ most characteristically neighborhoods, we’ll make a longer stop at San Telmo, to experience its peculiar colonial atmosphere and to visit its famed antique shops, and specially Juan Carlos Pallarols’ workshops, one of the most renowned silversmiths in the world.

Our journey starts at Plaza de Mayo, the city’s foundational spot, which concentrates the fundamental institutions of Argentine political life. There, we visit the Pink House, the Cabildo, primitive town hall, and the Metropolitan Cathedral.

In San Telmo, once the residential district favored by the upper classes that after long years of abandonment and marginalization is now booming again as one of the city’s coolest spots, we walk across its cobbled streets, enjoying its cool, Bohemian atmosphere. We’ll visit some of its famed antique shops as well as the very typical Plaza Dorrego, the starting point of the district’s renovation, where every Sunday a traditional antiques fair is held, where you can find anything from antiques to memorabilia to old clothes and dusty magazines. This vibrant colonial neighborhood is the perfect location for a silversmith workshop like Juan Carlos Pallarols’, the country’s greatest specialist in colonial silverworks, who has crafted the ceremonial staffs of many Argentine presidents, as well as official presents for foreign countries and pieces for national and international organizations and corporations. In the workshop, we’ll be transported back to an era before industrialization, where every object bore the personal mark of its author, and techniques were secretly transmitted through the generations. Pallarols has received commissions by personalities such as Prince Phillip and King Juan Carlos II of Spain, Máxima Zorreguieta, François Miterrand and Nelson Mandela, among others.

Next, we visit La Boca, one of the most iconic and authentic barrios of Buenos Aires, strongly shaped by the working class Italian immigrants, mainly from Genoa, who settled during the last decades of the 19th century. Their festive spirit can still be felt in the peculiar buildings the immigrants erected with any leftover materials they could find, like tin and paint from the nearby shipyards. We’ll walk across Caminito Street, which sums up the most distinctive aspects of La Boca: its passion for tango, art and soccer.

Puerto Madero is a rather contrasting port district: built in 1991 on a huge plot of land, formerly Buenos Aires’ first deep water port, nowadays it gathers the trendiest restaurants and nightclubs, the most modern hotels and the most ambitious real-estate ventures.

Travelling northwards, we make a short stop at the gorgeous Plaza San Martín, designed by celebrated French landscape artist Charles Thays. Around the square, we can see some of Buenos Aires most illustrious buildings.

Once in Recoleta, we visit the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, one of the city’s oldest churches, which dates to the Colonial era, and is surprisingly well-
preserved, and adjacent to it, the celebrated Recoleta Cemetery, one of the city’s most characteristic attractions, for its splendid funeral monuments and the personalities it hosts.
Our journey ends at the Bosques de Palermo (Palermo Woods). With over 50 hectares of woods and parks designed by renowned French landscape artist Charles Thays for the May Revolution Centennial, Palermo is Buenos Aires’ main source of fresh air. Next to the woods, we can find the sumptuous French palaces where the wealthier classes used to live.

Itinerary: Montserrat – San Telmo – La Boca – Puerto Madero – Retiro – Recoleta – Palermo.
Approximate duration: 4 hours.
Included services:
• Bilingual guide specializing in Buenos Aires’ History, Arts, and Architecture.
• Transportation and transfers in a comfortable, top of the line vehicle. Uniformed driver.
• Visit to antiquarians.
• Visit to Juan Carlos Pallarols’ workshop.
• Brochure with extended information of the tour and Buenos Aires postcard.

> FARES
> isfg2009@ontheway.com.ar

3. ARISTOCRATIC BUENOS AIRES: RETIRO, RECOLTA AND PALERMO

The trails left by the Argentine aristocracy in their retreat are easy to follow, tracing a path from south to north. Upon abandoning San Telmo, their rimitive stronghold, in the late 19th the upper classes moved northwards, where during the first decades of the new century, our country’s true Belle Époque, they decided to showcase their wealth with the construction of magnificent buildings. French architects and engineers where promptly summoned, charging them with the design and construction of buildings that would allow for Buenos Aires to rival with Paris, back then undisputedly the center of the world, while shaking off at the same time the city’s Colonial heritage, transforming Buenos Aires into South America’s leading metropolis.

Our starting point is Plaza San Martín, a few meters from the massive Retiro railway station, a true railway engineering masterpiece, built in 1914 with materials brought directly from Liverpool. Plaza San Martín was built on a plot of land once occupied by the El Retiro hermit, who gave the neighborhood its current name; then there was a slave depot there, and from 1801 to 1819 Buenos Aires’ first and only Bull Ring operated there. Finally, barracks were installed, which remained until 1889, when they were dismantled to build the Square, which was designed by celebrated French landscape artist Charles Thays. Around Plaza San Martín stand tall some of the city’s most conspicuous buildings. Some of them will allow us to imagine the splendid life the wealthier classes lived in the early 20th century: such is the case of the former Palacio Paz, commissioned to French architect Louis Sortais by José C. Paz, founder of La Prensa newspaper, who never actually got to live there, and that after the death of Paz was sold to the national government; nowadays, this 12,000 square meter palace houses the Military Society.

We start our visit of Recoleta at the namesake Cemetery. Once through the doors of this colossal necropolis, which occupies four blocks and houses ornate mausoleums and funeral monuments by famed architects and artists, we’ll be forced to discredit the popular notion that we are all equal in death. Indeed, the wealthier classes built this cemetery to protect themselves from intruders even beyond the grave. It’s the final home of the most transcendental actors in Argentina’s public life, paradoxically including Eva Perón, who championed for the humble against the hated “oligarchs”. Next to the Cemetery, we find the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, built in 1732, making it the second oldest in Buenos Aires. We then walk across Alvear Avenue, home of the world’s top designer houses. At the end of the avenue, in the area known as Place Vendôme, after the traditional Parisian square, we see the Ortíz Basualdo Palace, an excellent example of French architecture in Buenos Aires, where casually the French embassy is located. A few meters away, we find the Mansion of the Four Seasons Hotel, formerly the imposing palace of the very traditional Álzaga Unzué family. Finally, before leaving Recoleta, we visit the Museum of Decorative Art, a spectacular French mansion built in 1918, which houses an important collection. There we’ll get an idea of how the very wealthy used to live during our country’s golden years

Following the footsteps of Argentine aristocracy on its retreat to the north, we visit Palermo Chico. Around the massive Bosques de Palermo (Palermo Woods), designed by Charles Thays for the May Revolution Centennial, together with parks, squares, woods and artificial lakes, we’ll have the chance to admire more luxurious palaces and mansions. We’ll also visit the Palermo Rose Garden, a beautiful park that houses many species of Western civilization’s most sung flower.

Our visit ends at Costanera Norte (North Riverside Area), where if the weather’s good we’ll be able to spot the Uruguayan coast.

Itinerary: Retiro – Recoleta – Palermo Chico – Costanera Norte.
Approximate duration: 3.30 hours.
Included services:
• Bilingual guide specializing in Buenos Aires’ History, Arts, and Architecture.
• Transportation and transfers in a comfortable, top of the line vehicle. Uniformed driver.
• Entry ticket to Museum of Decorative Art and guided tour of its collection.
• Brochure with extended information of the tour and Buenos Aires postcard.

> FARES
> isfg2009@ontheway.com.ar

For reservations or more information, please contact:
isfg2009@ontheway.com.ar
On The Way Travel Co -Leg 9730
Juncal 831 3ro. Apto # 0301
Ciudad de Buenos Aires
República Argentina
Ph: (+5411) 4314-3456
Fax: (+5411) 4894-0881
www.ontheway.com.ar