Things to do
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Casa Rosada
Pink stucco and colonnades mark the seat of the Argentine executive, on the east side of Plaza de Mayo, its balcony long associated with Eva Peron. Free guided tours run at weekends and book out online days ahead. The museum below, set in the foundations of the old customs house, opens more often.
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El Ateneo Grand Splendid
A theatre of 1919 turned bookshop, with the boxes kept as reading alcoves, the painted ceiling intact and the stage converted into a cafe. Browsing takes minutes and photography is the real draw, which shows in the queue along the balcony rail. Stock is mostly Spanish language, with a small foreign section on the ground floor.
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La Boca
Corrugated iron houses painted in salvaged ship colours line Caminito, the short pedestrian lane at the heart of the old Genoese port district. Tango dancers work the restaurant terraces and the Boca Juniors stadium stands a few blocks inland. Visits run in daylight and stay within the few painted streets, since the barrio beyond them is poor and unlit.
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MALBA
Latin American art of the twentieth century fills a sharp glass and concrete building in Palermo, built around the Costantini collection: Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Antonio Berni and Xul Solar. Temporary shows occupy the upper floors and the cinema screens restored films. Closed on Tuesdays, and two hours covers the permanent collection without rushing.
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Palermo
Green and low-rise, this large northern barrio splits into Palermo Soho for restaurants and boutiques and Palermo Hollywood for bars and production studios, with the rose garden and lakes of the Bosques de Palermo lying between them. Evenings are the point here, and tables rarely fill before ten at night.
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Plaza de Mayo
Argentine political life has turned on this square since 1810, from the May Revolution to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who still circle the central pyramid on Thursday afternoons. Casa Rosada closes one end and the cathedral stands at another. Demonstrations are frequent and can shut the surrounding streets without warning.
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Puerto Madero
Brick dock warehouses along the old port basins have been converted into offices, steakhouses and hotels, with a white footbridge by Santiago Calatrava crossing between them. Two moored sailing ships serve as museums, and the Costanera Sur reserve stretches behind, a flat band of scrub and lagoon walked by birders at first light.
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Recoleta Cemetery
Marble mausoleums stand in tight lanes behind a neoclassical gate, a walled city of the Argentine dead that includes Eva Peron. Cats sleep on the tombs, and the grandest vaults carry stained glass and full basements of coffins. Entry is ticketed, maps are handed out at the gate, and an hour covers it unless a guided walk is booked.
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San Telmo Market
Under an iron and glass roof from 1897, butchers and greengrocers trade alongside antique dealers and a row of small kitchens. Sundays bring the feria along Defensa street, when the crowds thicken and the aisles become hard to move through. Weekday mornings are quieter and better suited to the food counters.
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Teatro Colón
Opera house of 1908, ranked with Milan and Vienna for acoustics, with a horseshoe auditorium under a painted dome. Guided tours run through the day in Spanish and English and take in the golden hall and the tiered boxes. Tickets for performances sell out well ahead, and the upper seats look down almost vertically on the stage.
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Tigre Delta
North of the capital, the Parana breaks into a maze of brown channels lined with stilt houses, rowing clubs and wooden launches that work as the local bus. Commuter trains reach Tigre town in about an hour, and public catamarans run deeper into the islands from the wharf. Winter days are grey and free of mosquitoes, summer the opposite on both counts.