October 30, 2025 . Buenos Aires : Colors, Cemeteries, Culture, and Cuisine.

Began the day, as usual, at our little cafe down the street and then headed for the Centro Cultural de Recoletta which appeared to be about a 40-minute walk. We had a lot on our agenda today, given that we lost all of yesterday dealing with the iPhone. So we decided a taxi would be the most efficient way to move around (combined with walking and the metro). The taxi dropped us at what appeared to be the Cultural Center, which was adjacent to a lovely old church, so we poked our head into the church before going to the Center. There was a line to get in and we needed to purchase tickets. Once we got beyond the front door we realized we were in an amazing cemetery… not the cultural center, which was actually on the other side of the church. So we strolled through Cementerio de la Recoleta an incredible cemetery that contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Peron, Nobel Prize winners, presidents of Argentina, and members of Argentina’s wealthiest families over the decades.

It’s like streets lined with large row houses 15′ high and taller. It’s lined with elaborate marble mausoleums that are decorated with statues. The styles of the mausoleums include Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Baroque, and Neo-Gothis.  It’s laid out in sections like city blocks, with tree-lined main walkways. Some of the mausoleums are still being used by rich families in Argentina. For comparison, it’s about 1/4 the size of Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris for those who may have stumbled on, as I did (or purposefully visited) that cemetery. But the feel is very different because it’s very religious and again has this verticality.

After a quick stroll among the dead we walked to the other sid of the church and arrived at the Culture Center — a contemporary exhibit space that also hosts events, concerts, films, etc. The center was in the midst of hanging two new shows including one for Day of the Dead, so the offerings were slim.

From there we walked a bit and then headed to see a gallery devoted to the work of Xul Solar, a painter and artist who used many different media. He was involved seriously in astrology, linguistics, the occult, and mythology.  It is said that he was fluent in 20 languages and went on to create his own language that he considered to be a potential world language. And he created games, a piano with three rows of keys and a a six-note scale.

Then we hopped into a taxi to go to see South America’s thinnest house. But while in the taxi, I thought it would be good to see when the house closes for the day. Lo and behold, it wasn’t even open today. Since we were already in the taxi, we just told him to head to Caminito which is in a very different part of the city. Caminito (small walkway) is a street or an alley in the La Boca neighborhood (south of where we are staying. It became famous because supposedly it inspired the music for a famous tango song. As the story goes, there used to be a stream that ran along the route of what is now Caminito. When the stream dried up, railway tracks were put along that route. Then the railroad closed in 1954, and the area became a landfill and an eyesore. And then an Argentine artist prepared the walls facing the street with different colors and then built a stage which eventually became a theater. For more than a century, the neighborhood had been home to immigrants, mostly Italians. Apparently the bright colors that the houses are painted are the result of using leftover paint from the port and shipyard nearby.

Today, the small area is a bit of a tourist trap with dozens of people taking photographs and selfies. And shopkeepers and landowners have constructed some pretty funny sculptures to make the street even more interesting (and a bit Disney-esque). But still it’s a fun walk.

From Caminito, we headed to see Palacio Barolo—an office building, which was Buenos Aires tallest building for more than a decade in the 1930s. It is the sister building to Palacio Salvo that we went to see in Montevideo. It’s just as eclectic as the sister building. The information sheets say that the building was designed according to the cosmology of Dante’s Divine Comedy. 22 floors divided into three sections with the basement serving as hell and the uppermost floors representing heaven.

Since I’ve got a real aversion to tours and guides, we assumed we could just meander throughout the building as we did in Montevideo… But they are much stricter here and the only way we could get beyond the lobby level (Floor 0) was to buy a ticket to go to the bar/cafe on the 16th floor (elevator to the 14th floor and then spiral staircase to the 16th floor). From there you could get great views of the top tower floors. So off we went… for a drink and some cheese and pears.

By now it was about 6 om and we had dinner reservations for 8:30. We hopped on the Sube (metro), made one change and then walked from our local station to the hotel. We hadn’t really looked at the distance from the hotel to the restaurant and then suddenly we realized we needed to get going. We took a taxi because it was too far to walk (especially given our 15,000-step day). But the taxi got a bit lost as he punched in the wrong address onto his map program. Anyway, we got there an hour late. Initially they said they couldn’t seat us or we could eat outside. But the temps here are in the 50s at night. Finally, they figured out a table for us. And we were really glad, once the food started coming. Not sure how to describe the menu, but here’s what we had: started with a very tiny luscious pate that was sitting atop a sort of mini-muffin. The bread was on the sweet side. Atop the pate was a little dab of jelly. Taste buds watch out! Then we had a second starter–a cured herring dish that was covered with some kind of creme fraiche and marinated beetroot and with ;ickled onions. It looked fantastic and tasted even better. We followed these starters with our main course–a melt-in-your-mouth sirloin cooked perfectly rare. It was accompanied with a sort of shoestring potato pile. We had some chocolate dessert that was heavenly but we were stuffed and couldn’t finish.

Our days in Buenos Aires are coming to a close. Tomorrow is the last day here. Then we do a little driving loop into the countryside. Sort of sorry that we are missing lots of weekend activities in BA but it will be good to see what happens outside this megalopolis. We leave Argentina on Monday and arrive home on Tuesday…to face whatever craziness is happening in the US. We’ve been following the news online and on BBC, but it’s not the same as living it.

More tomorrow.