Buenos Aires - Day 19

Again a day with perfect summer weather: 27 Celsius and a light breeze. A great opportunity to check out the Plaza Dorrego in my neighborhood San Telmo, just 3 blocks from my apartment. It's mentioned in every travel guide and indeed it's a sort of oasis from the buzzing downtown district. On Sundays it's crowded but today was just fine.
I had a cafe con leche and dos medialunes, as the Croissants are named here,....
...and my compañero chose icecream.

Later (más tarde :-) we needed something more refreshing.

It was just a great moment to sit in the shadow of the old tree and listen to some old tango music..

Later we even enjoyed a tango show. It's a common sight to see tango couples dancing in the streets (in order to collect some money later, of course).
This is one of the old buildings around the place and typical in the neighborhood. This one has a famous cafe just at the corner, the Cafe Dorrego, which I will visit in one of the next days.

Buenos Aires - Day 18

Tonight I heard music and unusual noise from the street, once more. This time it was a bicyclists parade, accompanied by a car blasting music in the night air. In addition to this sound all of the stopped cars and Colectivos honked like maniacs, in total it sounded like a carnival.
Bicyclists are very rare sight in Buenos Aires, the damaged street surface and the traffic are usually suicidal for cyclists during the day. That might be the reason for this gathering, the group can even stop the cars... It was funny to watch, however, a nice surprise.

Buenos Aires - Day 16

Today only some typical sights on my way home from school... This is how Plaza de Mayo looks today. I just learned that in the 50's the Plaza de Mayo was actually bombed during an attemp to kill General Peron, who survided. Several hundreds of others were killed, though. Strange thought..
These are some of the corners surrounding the place.


Virtually everywhere are the buses, the Colectivos. I guess there are more Colectivos than taxis. They are very cheap (just one Peso, about 20 Euro-Cent) but they are very noisy, too, and they drive like crazy...


A typical sight are the green newspaper stands. This one is closed unfortunately.
Some of the rather nice buildings are empty and decay.
And two more street scenes..

Buenos Aires - Day 15

When I got up today, eventually, the sunny morning turned into a upcoming rainstorm. It was interesting to watch, though.After watching the rain for a while I decided to go outside anyway, protected by my umbrella. I chose a museum in San Telmo, only 4 blocks away, the Museo Historico Nacional. Left the camera at home because of the heavy rain. I was apparently the only visitor in the museum during the rainstorm, besides about 30 men of the security personnel, somehow a strange feeling. Unfortunately the most interesting part of the museum was closed for renovations, so I wasn't able to see the paintings of Candido Lopez which I had hoped to...(well, some of the other pictures of him were on display in the Museo des Bellas Artes).

Buenos Aires - Day 14

First sight of Saturday's tour was the Colon statue behind the Casa Rosada. Funny, what if Columbus had never sailed out to discover the Americas? I wouldn't be here in Buenos Aires now, probably;-)
Then along some tall buildings of companies like Microsoft, Sun and IBM. The IBM building is something special, it sits on only two small stilts. I guess I wouldn't want to work in there.

An old building between the modern ones..
Then I reached the first target of today: Buenos Aires Design. A fine place to buy furniture and other things for interior design.
Integrated into the complex is the Hardrock Cafe Buenos Aires.
Some pictures of the shop windows:





After looking at all these things I became thirsty. First I wanted to have a coffee on the sunny terrace outside, but there it was way too hot...
..so I chose the small cafeteria inside...
...and had the probably best Cappucino ever.
Then back outside, through the green alleys and parks of the Recoleta district.
Found the Eva Peron memorial...
... and the National Library, which has a very interesting architecture, like so many buildings here.
A rather classical beauty is the building of the Museo de Artes Decorativo. Unfortunately it wasn't open already, so I postponed my visit to another day.
Another interesting piece of architecture is the building of the Automobil Club Argentina.
Still in the park area of Recoleta..
..I reached the main attraction of this day: the Museo Nacional des Bellas Artes.
I indulged myself in the fine arts once more...although I have to admit that it felt rather small compared to the last museum of arts I visited: the Metropolitan in New York :-)



From the sculpture terrace one has a view of the building across the road, which has a rather German neoclassical architecture which was in fashion among dictators around the world in the 40's of the last century.Spent the evening with cooking and trying a very good Argentinian vino tinto from the Mendoza region, made with from the typical Malbec grape, then watched a great playoff match between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburg Steelers.