Exploring Buenos Aires
For my recent trip to Argentina, we flew into Buenos Aires from Singapore. And we had two days to explore this capital city - said to be the most European of the Latin American cities. During these two days, we took public transport - subte (name for metro) and buses.
We also took the Hop-on-Hop-Off bus, so to see more of the cities with the commentaries given on board. Price is 180 Pesos.
(Official exchange rate - 1USD = 8.6 Pesos. But you could exchange for a better rate if you were to check with the hotel staff or the locals. I managed to change at different rates between 1USD = 11 Pesos to the best rate of 1 USD = 13 Pesos at various places across the country in Argentina)
I have selected some pictures that I took in the La Boca district and uploaded onto this post. And I will add more pictures of San Telmo in the next post.
LA BOCA
(From Wikipedia)
La Boca is a neighborhood, or
barrio of the
Argentine capital,
Buenos Aires. It retains a strong
European flavour, with many of its early settlers being from the
Italian city of
Genoa. In fact the name has a strong assonance with the Genoese neighborhood of
Boccadasse (or
Bocadaze in Genoese dialect), and some people believe
that the Buenos Aires barrio was indeed named after it. The conventional explanation is that the neighborhood sits at the mouth ("boca" in
Spanish) of the
Riachuelo.
In 1882, after a lengthy general strike, La Boca
seceded from Argentina, and the rebels raised the Genoese flag, which was immediately torn down personally by then President
Julio Argentino Roca.
Among sports fans, Boca is best known for being the home of world renowned
football club Boca Juniors. The club plays their home matches in the
Estadio Alberto J. Armando, popularly known as
La Bombonera (The chocolate box in Spanish)
La Boca is a popular destination for
tourists visiting Argentina, with its colourful houses and pedestrian street, the
Caminito, where
tango artists perform and tango-related memorabilia is sold. Other attractions include the
La Ribera theatre, many
tango clubs and Italian
taverns. The actual area visited by tourists is only a few blocks long and has been built up for tourism very actively over the last few years. Outside this tourist area, it is a fairly poor neighborhood that has had many regular occurrences of petty crimes reported.
Shopping Street to do some souvenir hunting.
GETTING THERE
There is no Subte (Metro) station nearby La Boca. You will need to take a bus there.
Bus 29, 64 will bring you there, and the fare is rather cheap.
0.80 peso (80 centavos) per person.
.png "English"){kind=small}
