Welcome Back to Buenos Aires!

Hello Again,

On Tuesday we arrived back in BA.  Our room at the Alvear Palace is fabulous — we have a lot of space and a wonderful view!

 

 

 

We just settled in and then went to the lounge where we enjoyed tea……except we didn’t drink tea :).  It is a wonderful space from which to enjoy the views.

We then ventured out to an Italian — which was not wonderful, but it was close and it was highly touted…..just not our favorite!  By the way, most of the time I can leave on the scooter via the shopping galleria attached to the lobby — it has two ramps — but it’s closed at night so I get to use the “lift” at the entrance.

The next morning we took pictures out the window….testing the range of my camera.  We love the metal flower that was newish ten years ago and now the artist has died and it doesn’t work as well as earlier.  It used to open every morning and close every night.  A nice idea!  Look at the people in the picture for scale.

When we were in Buenos Aires ten years ago, we worked with a young woman, Marina Macchiavello (marina@lolargentina.com), who was so good and so enjoyable that we decided to see if we could contact her again.  I had kept her information and found her. She did remember us and we set it up to work with her again.  We can highly recommend her if you need assistance ever in Buenos Aires.  She now has her own agency and a number of employees and the company specializes in, among other things, fly fishing!  Apparently the fishing is excellent in Argentina and lots of people come here to fish.

Anyway she came to the hotel to pick us up and we were off to look at street art and shop in the north part of town in Palermo Hollywood and Palermo Soho (the real names — not nicknames).  The graffiti is so bad here that many people paint their home with street art; most of the time the destructive graffiti persons won’t paint over the street art….but not always.

First of all, the city has begun painting the walls under overpasses to try to discourage graffiti or tagging; the first two are about the tango, but we saw race horses near the race track and famous people elsewhere. Nice idea!

Then lots and lot of street art:

Along the way we found an optical shop; I needed to have a pair of my glsses fixed…..but there was a bonus, I got two new pairs and met the designer!

Notice the piece with the pope on a rocket ship – the Argentinians are miffed at him for coming to South America and not to Argentina. There is a lot of political art and lots that’s just funny!

There was more shopping; I loved the look of the converted old warehouses: great, high ceilings and skylights.

There is a building where the art has relief and forms the entry; we saw it with the door pulled up….but Marina furnished a picture of the whole façade when closed.

In the early evening we made our now daily walk to Freddo’s and then to a park next door. But it was afterward when the night started.

We were picked up and taken to El  Viejo Almacen, one of the oldest tango clubs in Buenos Aires, located in the San Telmo neighborhood in a building from the 1800’s.  It is considered the most traditional of all the tango shows. When we arrived our name was on our table along with a bottle of champagne and we were in the second row with the tables scattered, so we had perfect seats. 

John and I both love the tango and this was no exception. It was a really talented troupe. They were accompanied by a pianist, a bass player, a violinist and a man who plays a box similar to an accordion but with buttons……don’t know that name. They were also fabulous.

Both John and I loved the specialty act: four men who played Andean tribal music. I was particularly fascinated with the one who played the pipes – that looked difficult and sounded beautiful!

And a very short bonus:

I know that’s not a well edited clip…..but it is the only short thing I have.  

There is one last blog to come — another day and a half filled with fun….but I’ll end here for now!

Love,

 Beth