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| Past and present merge beautifully in Buenos Aires | |||
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 rgentina's capital Buenos Aires is the main entry and exit point for Argentina. It is a city with deep anchors to the past and the ethnic and cultural heritages of its residents, and is also the center of business, government and progressive development.
Buenos Aires is vast yet easily accessible by subway or Subte. The portions of most interest to visitors surround the compact central area around the Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest avenue in the world, which runs from Plaza Constitución to Avenida del Libertador and the exclusive northern suburbs. Intersecting the Avenida 9 de Julio, the Avenida de Mayo runs west from the Casa Rosada at Plaza de Mayo to the congressional buildings at Plaza del Congreso. Street names change at Avenida de Mayo. On the northeastern corner the Retiro train station, the bus terminal and a number of airline terminals are conveniently grouped. 
Corrientes crosses 9 de Julio at the Obelisk, a central landmark. There is a pedestrian tunnel beneath the street. Shopping is most fashionable on upscale Avenida Santa Fe and the Florida and Lavalle pedestrian malls.
The charm of Buenos Aires for many visitors lies in the neighborhoods known as barrios. There are many tourists never sees unless they go out from the center into the newer suburbs but the most famous ones surround the center of the city and have their roots in the city's history. La Boca This working class area, originally populated by Italian dock workers, has bloomed into a colorful center of art, restaurants and the colorful metal houses which present a refreshing change from the rest of the city. The colors come from the brightly painted houses on the Caminito a pedestrain walk named for the tango of the same name and the waters of the Riachuelo stained by oil sludges. The painter Benito Quinquela Martín was a leading influence in the use of color and his home, now the Museo de Bellas Artes de La Boca, displays his paintings of dock workers. This complex, energetic, and seductive port city, which stretches south-to-north along the Rio de la Plata, has been the gateway to Argentina for centuries. Portenos, as the multinational people of Buenos Aires are known, possess an elaborate and rich cultural identity. They value their European heritage highly--Italian and German names outnumber Spanish, and the lifestyle and architecture are markedly more European than any other in South America. One of the world's finest opera houses, the Teatro Colon, flourishes here on the plains alongside the river. Portenos are intensely involved in the life and culture of their city, and they will gladly share the secrets of Buenos Aires if you lend an ear and relate your own stories in return.  Buenos Aires' physical structure is a mosaic as varied and diverse as its culture. The city has no dominating monument, no natural monolith that serves as its focal point. Instead, Buenos Aires is composed of many small places, intimate details, and tiny events and interactions, each with a slightly different shade, shape, and character. Glass-sheathed skyscrapers cast their slender shadows on 19th century Victorian houses; tango bars hazed with the piquant tang of cigar smoke face dusty, treasure-filled antique shops across the way.
The city's neighbourhoods are small and highly individualized, each with its own characteristic colors and forms. In the San Telmo district, the city's multinational heritage is embodied in a varied and cosmopolitan architecture - Spanish Colonial design couples with Italian detailing and graceful French Classicism. La Boca's pressed tin houses are painted a rainbow of colors, and muralists have turned the district's side-streets into avenues of color. For all its diversity, the elusive spirit of Argentina as a country is present everywhere in Buenos Aires. The national dance, the tango, is perhaps the best expression of that spirit--practiced in dance halls, parks, open plazas, and ballrooms, it is a dance of intimate separation and common rhythm, combining both an elegant reserve and an exuberant passion. Next >> Worldroom: Buenos Aires City GuideBuenos Aires Weather: | |||
