The oldest neighborhood in Buenos Aires is San Telmo. Underneath the neighborhood is a labyrinth of almost 2 kilometers of tunnels. The first of these were built as escape routes for Jesuits in the late 1700s.
Later in the 1800s they were expanded and used to reroute a creek. In the early 1900s they were abandoned and stayed that way until someone purchased one of the old large houses and started to restore it – accidentally finding the tunnels.
Today a number of them serve as an events center and art museum.
Another sunny Saturday was the perfect day to take a ‘Tours for Tips’ of a neighborhood, this time back in San Telmo. Unfortunately the tour guide didn’t show so we set off on our own – finding plenty of unique sights.
We arrived at the 2nd major rail station in Buenos Aires – Constitucion. It is a classic!
Next stop was Parque Lezama, and the Palacio within.
We continued on into the main part of the neighborhood.
… checked out the shops in and around San Telmo Market.
Santo Doningo Basilica
A close up of the Casa Rosada
Puerto Madero
And finally at the Kirchner Cultural Center. Who needs a tour guide!
With the weekend by myself in Buenos Aires I was looking for something to do when I came across an 18km (11 mile) ‘Urban Trek’ across much of the city.
Note – with an all day hike this post is somewhat long…
The tour started out at the visitor information center in La Boca, a working class neighborhood along a seriously polluted river. It reminded me of Youngstown and Cleveland in the 1970s.
Our trek started out with 7 intrepid hikers and a guide. It would not finish that way.
The people of La Boca are proud of their neighborhood…
The center is a tourist area packed with colorful shops.
The area was setting up for a Sunday artist market.
We quickly left the area and passed by the colorful houses which legend says were painted various colors with the left over paint from ships.
La Boca is most known for their soccer team. The stadium is called La Bombonera, which translates to the Chocolate Box, from the shape of the stadium. The seating is in an incredibly steep pitch.
This 49,000 seat stadium is jammed in the middle of the neighborhood.
The walk through the rest of La Boca provided a number of interesting views.
Eventually we made our way to the San Telmo neighborhood, along with more diverse photo ops.
We passed under a freeway that once housed an interrogation center during the military dictatorship era in the 1970s. Sadly during the construction of the freeway they found remains of many who never made it out of the center. There are tributes to those lost during those times.
Port Madero is a new area of tall buildings built in the former port of Buenos Aires.
One young lady on our tour, who was from Mexico, took selfies at virtually every stop along the way. She was very entertaining in making sure she had the perfect look – and a great sport when I asked to photo her taking her photo.
Our final stop on the morning part of the hike was the Plaza de Mayo.
After a break for lunch we headed out for the afternoon with a new guide, and only 4 hikers.
Having spent a few weeks in this part of town I was familiar with much of what we were passing, but it was still entertaining as our new guide was a very funny young lady.
A review of San Martin Plaza and Palacio.
Pelligrini Plaza.
The Addams Family Palacio (not really but it seems as though it should be)
An finally a stop at Recoleta Cemetery. Our hike continued for another couple of miles but didn’t produce any interesting photo, or the photographer was too tired to take them 🙂
While long, it was a very worthwhile day. Both guides were knowledgeable and entertaining, and I was able to see many areas of the city that most don’t. If you have an entire Sunday to spend in Buenos Aires I highly recommend putting on your best walking shoes and heading out…
RDZ Photography 