November 1, 2025 . Amid the horses and cattle in Lobos Argentina.

November 1, 2025

My plan was to begin this post describing last night’s meal in Buenos Aires at Piedro Pasillo.. but alas, while I can tell you that it was truly wonderful and very inventive, I actually don’t think I can remember the details. So this post may get updated when I remember the dishes (or if Peter and Jairo remember and let me know).

So this morning we had a leisurely brunch and then walked to pick up our rental car from SIXT and to say “Hasta Lluego” to Buenos Aires. Along the way, we spotted and finally figured out what the “direction posts” were that are located toward the end of our street in the Recoletta district. We asumed they were merely giving the distances to great cities around the world. But after a little research—they do that and more. They give the direction and distance to great bars in these cities. And the other post gives the distance to great bartenders around the world. They are conveniently located in front of a really good bar.

Then we headed north in our cute Renault to see the Argentine countryside. Lobos is about two hours from Buenos Aires and the drive gave us a chance to see just how large and sprawling Buenos Aires is. .. sort of like going from one end of Brooklyn to the other (?) After about an hour we were surrounded by rolling open land, lots of cows grazing, parillas (grills) everywhere and pretty flat. Just us, the cows, grass, trees, and intermittent traffic. We went from the many many-laned Buenos Aires boulevards to a three-lane highway (with tolls) and then to a one-lane (in each direction) country road.

And after passing the turnoff we needed twice, we finally arrived at Estancia La Candelaria—right out of central casting.

First you enter these large gates, and drive about 1/2 mile down a tree-lined dirt road… with horses roaming about. And then you see “the castle. The story goes that during the honeymoon of Manuel Fraga and Rebeca del Mármol, the two were very impressed by castles they saw in the Loire Valley, France and in 1884 hired a French architect to design a castle on land he had inherited. The “castle” was completed in 1900. I think the original building was about 12,000 sq ft.

Rebeca was devout, and unable to have children, so according to the story told in the materials, she got involved with funding programs for “underprivileged” children and eventually founded the Charitable Brotherhood, which ran a summer camp for these children.

Anyway, the castle is in need of repair; it’s pretty worn; and for me–a bit creepy. I’d also say that –as many of you know–this kind of decor (Trump Baroque, as far as I’m concerned) just doesn’t work for me. Dinner was part of the hotel fee, so we meandered to another building for the worst meal we’ve had in the past 17 days. Not sure how it is possible to ruin Argentine steak, but they did. We had some kind of raviolis as a starter (I didn’t even try them as they looked like paste) followed by a sirloin steak (remember in Argentina, it’s beef, beef, beef.) Mike ordered the chicken in a mustard sauce, which was edible but that’s about it. We had a creme brulee for dinner that didn’t seem to have the burnt sugar top.. We get breakfast in the morning and then we are headed to our final night in Argentina in another small town called San Antonio de Areco. Hope we picked a better place, but not sure. Actually the photos of La Candelaria on the Internet looked amazing (even though I knew the decor would make me nauseous) and the comments were very positive. Aha–the Internet lies.

The grounds are enormous and well maintained. Oh, one last piece of information. There is a chart in the room that shows pictures of several different animals that I suppose you might encounter while walking the grounds, along with information on precautions to take if you do see them. Among the geese, rabbits, and armadillos are also fox and pumas!! So I’ll be glad to get out of here without being eaten alive by the pumas (which we have not yet seen, thankfully).