30m
After yesterday’s tour, today was a disappointment. Marcella, our guide, picked us up to look at the northern side of Buenos Aires. Hmm, drive through old harbour area, no stops, just point out this to the left, this to the right. Reach old ‘French’ section which is now mostly embassies, diplomats and those who can afford it. Drive through, look to the left, look to the right. We did get to stop for a walk, at the Rose Garden. Now, while it was a nice rose garden, I failed to see the significance of it to the history of Buenos Aires or how it is important. Bouchart Gardens it is not!
Our next stop was Recoleta, named after a monastery and the cemetery contains the mausoleum of Eva Peron. While the church was nice on the outside, it was pretty boring inside. Did we want to pay extra and see inside the cemetery? Definitely, something historic and relevant. Numerous mausoleums are contained here, mostly for rich families and ex-presidents, but Eva Person’s is always covered in flowers and the major attraction.
Our last stop was a converted theatre, now a bookshop, and while it is an impressive sight, as over 95% of the books are in Spanish, not a lot of point. We got dropped off after this, near the shopping district but unfortunately this again was a dead loss. Buenos Aires is a very cosmopolitan city, so you had a choice of tacky souvenir crap or the shops that we could visit in Perth. We moved on to the oldest cafe in Buenos Aires; Tortoni, which started all the way back in 1858 and we lined up for about 20 minutes to get in. It was the highlight of the day, and not even on the tour.
Return and pick up washing and pack. We went for dinner at 6:30, to Plaza Asturias, just around the corner. Of course, Argentinians don’t normally eat dinner until after 9pm so we were the first there, and they were still setting up. Sit down, get given a complimentary sherry, handed 2 menus; one in English, one with current prices in Spanish. Argentina is currently on 108% inflation, and the election is on this weekend, glad I’ll be over the border in Chile. Waiter personally recommended the wine, a Malbec, and we had a very enjoyable meal.