Buenos Aires Center

Buenos Aires

This complex, energetic and seductive port city is located directly on the Rio del Plata and has always been the gateway to Argentina's hinterland. The Porteños, as the inhabitants of Buenos Aires are called, look back on an interesting cultural history. They place a lot of emphasis on their European origins and their lifestyle and architecture are much more European than in other Latin American countries. One of the most internationally famous opera houses, the Colon Theater, still attracts the world's best artists. mehr

The structure of Buenos Aires is as varied as its culture. The city has no domineering monument or otherwise clear urban core. Buenos Aires is an accumulation of small squares, intimate details. Glass skyscrapers stand next to 19th-century Victorian houses; tango bars with their signature cigar smoke adjoin antique stores full of unrecognized treasures. The neighborhoods, with few exceptions, are small and very self-contained, each with its own shapes and colors. In San Telmo, the city's cosmopolitan origins are evident in the architecture - Spanish colonial style, Italian details and French Art Nouveau fuse here. The tin houses of La Boca are brightly painted and muralists have transformed the side streets there into colorful avenues. There are a lot of important museums and galleries in the city, and the theater scene is unique. Buenos Aires wakes up when the sun goes down. Nothing more and nothing less can be expected from a city that invented the tango. The big streets of the city center fill with people on their way to some restaurant or to one of the many theater performances. Most people are dressed very smartly and stay out until early in the morning. Before 2 a.m., most clubs are sparsely attended. The districts of Palermo and Belgrano attract large crowds of young people as there are many clubs and discos there.