Recoleta, Boca, Palacio Barolo and more -- our second day in Buenos Aires

A sculpture in the MALBA

We began our day by walking north on Calle Peru, where we enjoyed looking at street murals as well as an interesting building at the corner of Peru and Avenida Belgrano.



Mural at corner of Peru and Chile, honoring a writer who was killed during the dictatorship




 
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Former City Bank of Buenos Aires at the corner of calle Peru and avenida Belgrano

   

Atlas figures holding up the City Bank building

Then the Schramms continued north to Calle Florida for another morning of shopping (you can never have too many Cuban cigars), while Nancy and I took our first subway ride north to see the Botanic Gardens.  But drat -- they were closed for Good Friday, so we walked over to a square to see the monument to the Spaniards and a statue by Rodin of the  Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, an  important President of the Argentina from 1868 to 1874. 

From there we walked to the Japanese Garden, where we we admitted for free as seniors, because the folks at the gate assumed we were over 65.  What an insult!  They had us three and four years older than we are.  We enjoyed relaxing in the garden.

Then walked to MALBA (Fundación Costantini (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires).  The building itself was fun. There was a range of interesting pieces, but we were able to take photos only in the hallways.



The bench is comfortable, but also a work of art....



that winds its way around the building



A work by Oscar Bony on the theme of assassination



One thing that has struck me as we have walked about Buenos Aires is the plenitude of large parks.  I have enjoyed the parks in Washington DC, my adopted home, but by and large they consume only a city block or maybe two.  But here, many of the parks are many blocks wide and long{ñ and even when they are just one city block, the blocks are so large that  that walking through or sitting in the park you feel divorced from the hustle and bustle around, and thus truly relaxed.

Another feature of Buenos Aires that has stood out for us, coming as we do from a diverse city like Washington, DC, is how very white this city is.  I cannot think of a European city where I have spent substantial time over the past 25 years that has so few people of color as Buenos Aires does.  To be sure, Buenos Aires is a veritable melting pot compared to Montevideo, whose population reflects the fact that, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Spaniards and their European descendants in early days of Uruguayan independence engaged in a deliberate policy of massacre against the indigenous population.  In one instance, the leadership of European descent gathered together all the indigenous people into one place, on the pretense of peace, and promptly massacred them.  We learned later of a forced march of indigenous people to Buenos Aires that sounds very much like the Trail of Tears in the 19th century United States

On the way home, we stopped for a photo of this silhouette of Eva Peron in profile, on the the side of the Ministry of Health and Social Development.

We met up with the Schramms back at the hotel, and after a brief rest we walked together down to La Boca, a famous workingclass neighborhood.  The guidebooks say to stick to the tourist part of the neighborhood and not venture out, but although there were some deserted streets and one in particular with a number of burned out cars, where some of our party got nervous, it seemed to me just fine in the light of day.  We walked past a building near the Bombonera that was labeled Bombonerita, which had a fanciful children's playground next to it, and then La Bombonera, where I was planning to be the next day to watch Boca Jrs. play.

Playground in front of the Bombonerita



La Bombonera

 and then into the tourist part of town.

I am not sure what I expected to find, but I confess that I was disappointed.  It was a huge tourist crush, with many vendors of trinkets, the occasional interesting artisan work, and brightly colored small paintings of the neighborhood.  There was a Maradona impersonator with whom you could pose for photos, and large signs with holes in them in which one could stick ones head to be photographed. and open air cafes apparently filled with tourists and the occasional tango dancers taking on customers to swing them about.  I did like the brightly colored houses, which for aught that appeared were confined to the tourist area -- walk a half block out and the houses were just like any other.

It just seemed to me to be a carnival and not a neighborhood.

We took a taxi back to the hotel, and then the subway off to our main evening activity -- a tour of Palacio Barolo.   We stopped for a bite to eat along Avenida de Mayo, because dinner was going to be late.  Mike stopped off to get some more pesos, not being sure wheether credit cards would be accepted for the tour price (they were not).  Nancy told me to try too;  I thought it a waste of time but I did try and, mirabile dictu, my bank card worked.  I took out the maximum twice!.

Palacio Barolo is a fanciful building erected from 1919 to 1923 by an Italian emigre textile tycoon as an hommage to the Divine Comedy.  The tour guide, whose uncle had had his accounting office in the building, explained the many ways in which the building's feature represented the Divine Comedy -- the ground floor representnig Hell, the middle floors purgatory, and the upper floors heaven. 



Detail in the lobby of Palacio Barolo




Entrance to an office in Palacio Barolo


We stopped on various floors and then climbed the last eight stories, stopping on the 20th floor to take photographs from an observation deck.  At this point, we could see over the entire city, and watched a religious service on one of the streets below with thousands of people listening and chanting or singing along.



Looking from Palacio Barolo toward the Congress Building
religious gathering in the lower right



Then on the very top, the 22 floor,  there was a huge lighthouse light which, once the guide turned it on, slowly revolved as we ducked and shielded our eyes as the light fell on each of us. 

Finally, we enjoyed a glass of wine (not quite the wine tasting advertised on the web site) in the tour office, which was the office occupied by the guide's deceased uncle. 

The guide answered questions for some time, then the group took the elevator down.  We decided to walk, only to find the stairs barred just before the bottom.  Happily, we just summoned one of the office elevators and rode down the last couple of floors.

Finally, we took a taxi to have dinenr at La Cabrera, a place in the Palermo recommended by my colleague Mike Kirkpatrick.  There was 45 minute wait, but we were  offered champagne and hors d'oeuvres while we stood around.  The dinner was excellent.  Particularly good were the arugula and parmesan salad and the bife de chorizo with Roquefort.  I was amused that the menu had to explain "like blue cheese."  There were also a large number of tiny side dishes, mostly interesting cold vegetable combinations, and Argentine version of Korean sides.



Bife de Chorizo and collection of interesting small vegetable side dishes at La Cabrera

The taxi ride back from the restaurant to the hotel (and also the ride from Palacio Barolo to the restaurant) was a reminder of just how big a city Buenos Aires is.  The ride took well over 30 minutes and we were traveling through the city streets at full speed.  And much of the trip was on a ten-lane, one-way avenue. Not the broadest avenue in Buenos Aires, the driver informed us.  That distinction, so far as I could tell, goes to the Avenida 9 de Julio, a north-south artery that is five lanes in esch direction, plus as many as three turning lanes at major intersections, plus service roads on each side, two southbound lanes named avenida Lima and two northbound lanes named Carlos Pellegrini.

A day in Buenos Aires

We began the day with a nice little breakfast at our hotel, the Bohemia Buenos Aires, then walked to Balcarce, passing murals like the one below

Mural on Balcarce

 to the Plaza de Mayo, where we passed the Casa Rosada, the president's residenceamd headed on into the square where we saw this small obelisk.

Mike and Jean wanted to do some shopping, so we walked up Calle Florida, one of the main shopping drags, and entered the Galerias Pacifico, a shopping mall built into an ornate old train station.

Entrance to the Galerias Pacifico

Inside the Galerias Pacifico

I picked up some alfajores to bring back for my colleagues at the office, while Mike found a cigar store where he could pick up some Cuban cigars.

The exteriors of the office buildings we passed were often quite ornate.

Upper floors of an office building along Calle Florida

The entrance of the building

The lobby seens from the entrance

Then we walked up to the Plaza San Martin where we saw this awesome ficus tree

Ficus tree in Plaza San Martin

and continued to the Recoleta Cemetary that was jammed with interesting mausoleums, including the Duarte family crypt including many testimonies to Eva Peron (not pictured).  This place was interesting itself that maybe it merits a separate blog post later on.

A particularly affecting monument to a teenaged girl with a poem from her father

Then we walked to a restaurant called Cumana, which served country fare from northern Argentina.  The most interesting dishes, which I hope to learn to make myself, were locro, a corn, bean, beef and pork stew, and a pastel de calabazas y lomo with caramelized onions and honey.

We visited the Museo National de Bellas Artes (not highly recommended) and then a mechanical flower in the  Plaza de las Naciones Unidas at the edge of the Recoleta barrio that opens with the daylight and closes at sundown.

Paul and Nancy with Floralis Generica

By this time, many of the crew were bushed and we headed back to our hotel to rest.  In the evening, we walked down to Avenida San Juan to eat at Cafe San Juan, an excellent restaurant.  The place was completely empty when we arrived, but it was booked up tight -- unless we ate either outside or at the bar.  The outside was a bit cool, and the traffic seemed noisy, so we opted to eat at the bar, from which we had front row seats to watch the kitchen crew preparing our meals and the meals for the rest of the room, which was full within 45 minutes.

The action in the tiny kitchen area

 The menu is written only on a chalkboard, but the dishes that particularly impressed were the garlic prawns, the bandiola cooked in malbec, fettucine with pesto and grilled zucchini, and stuffed partridge.  The dessert menu looked tempting but we were all too stuffed to eat any.

Bandiola braised in malbec

We finished the evening by walking back to Plaza Dorrego where we had drinks outside while listening to a jazz combo; when they took a break they were succeeded by a pair of electric blues musicians who set up impromptu on the other side of the plaza.

Colonia del Sacramento and Arrival in Buenos Aires

Today we drove from Montevideo to Colonia del Sacramento.  The rain began pouring down as we traveled, and we were worried about whether we were in for a bad weather day.  Happily, the rain abated as we continued westward, leaving  some spectacular skies to contemplate.

We had a outdoor lunch in Colonia del Sacramento, an early-settled town on the Rio de la Plata where the old colonial torn has been preserved .  We wandered through the cobble-stoned streets and ate an outdoors meal while listening to a quartet of folk musicians, then looked around the town.  It cost only 50 Uruguayan pesos, roughly $2.50 apiece, to get into eight local museums -- the charge seemed low but then there was not much to the museums.



One of two original gates to the old walled city



A lovely sycamore-lined street

18th Century Portuguese fountain



A street in Colonia del Sacramento



The lighthouse, built among the ruins of Convento de San Francisco

Our touring was cut short to head to the boat acorss the Rio de la Plata, Mike and Jean wented to get there early because they anticipated trouble getting the special document they needed to get back itno Uruguay (which they need until they get their permanent resident cards, for which they applied two years ago). And, in fact, they had to walk to a separate building to get that, so it is a good thing we were early.

The boat ride was smooth, but there were again "interesting" skies to be seen from the window.

We were expecting to be hit with a stiff $140 entry fee to get nito Argentina, but were surprised to learn that this is charged only when one arrives by air.  We hopped into a cab to our hotel, the Bohemia Buenos Aires.  And we arrived not a moment too soon -- the skies burst a few minutes after our arrival and the show was spectacular, wuith high winds, lightning and heavy heavy rain.  We heard the next morning that there had been extensive flooding (we will be walking today instead of taking the subway becasue some stations are flooded).

Because it was raining so hard we decided to duck right across the street to an open restaurant, the Nacional.  It was good, particularly of interest were the pumpkin soup and the caramelized pork with roast pears and an apple mash.  I had the bife de chorizo which was fine but the especially interesting part of this dish was the papas crocantes, fried quicly so have a crisp crust but very soft inside.

After dinner, we walked up to the Plaza Dorrego where we had dessert in a small restaurant while watching a couple dancing the tango for tips.  Home to bed at 11:30, but intending to do more tomorrow.

Touring in Montevideo

We began our day of touring by visiting the Uruguay American School, where host Mike Schramm is director and Jean Schramm teaches.

 Then thanks to travel advice from Tony Quinn, we visited the Museo de Futbol, located in a corner of the Estadio Centenario, the stadium where the first World Cup was played in 1930 (where the US had its highest ever World Cup finish).

Paul in Estadio Centenario

Cabinet about the 1930 USMNT

The museum was an especial hit with Nancy and Jean because Uruguay's oldest professional team, Albion, carries the same name as their home town in Michigan.

Jean and Nancy with framed futbol jerseys etc

Mostly, though, the museum was a paean to Uruguay's past soccer glories: two Olympics victories in the 1920's, World Cup victories in 1930 and 1950, plus a passel of youth championships, memorialized with posters, photos, newspaper headlines and the like.

Newspaper front page commemorating Uruguay's win over Holland in the 1930 World Cup semifinal

One photo of each goal scored by Uruguay in the 1930 final

Then we drove to the Old City, where we gawked at the Palacio Salvo on the Plaza Independencia before spending a couple of hours visiting banks to try to solve a serious problem -- our ATM card was not working (we managed to get a large cash advance in the end).

Palacio Salvo behind Plaza Independencia

An old street sign

Then we went to the Mercado del Puerto, a collection of grilling restaurants.  We had some excellent fish and sweet potato -- it took sending the first beef dish back to get a tender plate, but the grilled chicken as hopelessly dry.

Entrance to the Mercado del Puerto

We drove home along La Rambla, eventually looking back to see the downtown skyline in the distance.

Our South American Vacation Begins

After an exhausting twenty-four hours of travel by car, train,and plane (the highlight was a view of the Andes as we flew from Santiago to Montevideo), we were met at their airport by Mike and Jean Schramm who brought us to their house, where we will be staying for the first couple of days of our vacation.  It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and the Schramm's treated us to a parilla, prepared in the barbecue area which, we were told, is a common  feature of Uruguayan homes.  I learned to make a chimichurri sauce, while Mike did the real work, slow-cooking a huge quantity of lamb as well as other goodies for us to eat.

Mike Schramm grilling

By the time Mike was done, the table was loaded with grilled lamb, chorizo, vegetables and cheese, and we dug in.

Jean and Mike Schramm with a tableful of grilled food

The clouds gathered as we picnicked; by the time we went for a walk through their Carrasco neighborhood, it was completely clouded over.  Carrasco is a middle class barrio where all the houses were surrounded by security fences.  We ended up at La Rambla, a walkway along the Rio de la Plata.

Nancy and Jean at La Rambla, Rio de la Plata behind

The river was so wide we could not see the other side, at least on a cloudy day.

We raw a street sign bearing the name of a good family friend back home, then headed back to the house, knowing that we would sleep well after such a long trip and day.

Avenida Dr. Gabriel Otero 

I am traveling with a tablet instead of a laptop on this vacation, and although it is working well for email and browsing, it is not working quite so well for uploading photos and interacting with the blogspot platform; so it may be awhile until the next vacation blog post (this is being done from a borrowed laptop).