Argentina’s capital and largest city is Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is a mix of faded European grandeur and Latin passion. Buenos Aires is a major port and the most populous city in Latin America and the country’s centre of trade, industry, politics, culture, and technology. According to legend, Pedro de Mendoza, a Spanish coloniser, founded the first colony there, which he named Nuestra Seora Santa Mara del Buen Aires. Locals in Buenos Aires are known as porteos since so many of the city’s residents arrived by boat from Europe in the past. Buenos Aires is primarily a city of various neighbourhoods with their own meeting spots, which are usually coffee houses or pubs, due to the lack of colonial architecture and prominent structures.
1. Recoleta Cemetery
The Recoleta Cemetery is located in the prestigious Recoleta neighbourhood, which takes its name from the Recoletos monks’ monastery, which was also part of the nearby Basilica Nuestra Seora del Pilar. Built in 1822 as the city’s first public cemetery, and designed by French engineer Prospero Catelin, it is considered one of the world’s most bizarre cemeteries. Then, as the city’s wealthiest families moved towards the city at the end of the nineteenth century, it became their favourite cemetery.
2. El Caminito
Caminito is a street museum and a historic alley in La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Caminito means “small pathway” or “little road” in Spanish.
It’s a street museum of brightly painted houses typical of the immigrant housing that characterised this portside region at the turn of the century and the beginning of the twentieth.
3. The Sunday fair in San Telmo
The Feria de San Telmo, often known as the San Telmo Fair, is one of the most well-known festivals in Buenos Aires. Every Sunday, the San Telmo Fair, located in one of Buenos Aires’ oldest neighbourhoods, is buzzing with unique craftsmanship and antiques.
4. The Water Company Palace
Swedish Argentine architect Carlos Nyströmer planned the structure as a water pumping station in 1877, and it was finished in 1894. It was commissioned in part to replace Lorea Plaza’s unattractive water tower. Behind its majestic, highly painted façade with elegant mansards, the freshwater tank with a capacity of 72 million litres is hidden. It was constructed in the late 1800s to meet the needs of an expanding metropolis. The structure now serves as the administrative headquarters for the city’s water corporation. It does, however, have a small, eccentric museum with a collection of tiles, faucets, antique toilets, bidets, and pipes.
5. Teatro Colón
National Geographic has named it one of the ten best opera houses in the world, and it is acoustically one of the top five concert venues in the world. It was inaugurated on the 25th of May in 1908, and it has since become one of the country’s most famous historical landmarks. The seven-story theatre has an eclectic design and can accommodate 25,000 people. Since its opening in 1908, it has hosted notable opera stars.
6. National Congress building
Between 1898 until 1906, the structure was under construction, designed by Italian architect Vittorio Meano and completed by Argentine architect Julio Dormal. The Argentine legislature’s two houses, the senate and the chamber of deputies, are housed in this neoclassical structure. The structure is mostly composed of limestone and features an 80-meter-high bronze-plated dome, one of the city’s tallest, as well as allegorical statues by Argentine sculptor Lola Mora.
7. Metropolitan Cathedral
The Metropolitan Cathedral, which faces the Plaza de Mayo, is the principal location of the Catholic Church in Argentina. Before assuming office at the Vatican in 2013, Pope Francis used to perform mass as Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio. In his honour, the Pope Francis Museum, which houses some of Bergoglio’s personal and liturgical objects, is now housed in the Cathedral. The facade of the building is more similar to a Greek temple than a Catholic church. The twelve Neo-Classical columns in front support a triangular frontispiece, which represents the twelve apostles of Christ.
8. La Boca
La Boca is busy, buzzing with laughter and pulsing with tango rhythms. The neighbourhood retains a strong European flavour, with many of the area’s early immigrants hailing from Genoa, Italy. With its colourful buildings and Pedestrian Street, the Caminito, where tango musicians perform and tango-related merchandise is sold, La Boca is a popular tourist destination in Argentina. The La Ribera theatre, several tango clubs, and Italian pubs are among the other attractions..
9. Puerto Madero
Puerto Madero, commonly known as the Puerto Madero Waterfront in the urban planning community, is a district of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, occupying a substantial piece of the Ro de la Plata riverfront and embodying the city’s latest architectural tendencies.
10. Palermo
Palermo is a neighbourhood, or barrio of Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital.
Palermo Viejo is a sub-neighborhood featuring hundreds of restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and stores, as well as the city’s greatest collection of boutique hotels. People can shop, relax in gardens, and visit art institutions in this area.
11. Micro Centro
The district has around 60 blocks and is densely packed with offices, stores, and banks. Because the Microcenter is not one of the 48 officially recognised Buenos Aires neighbourhoods, it has no defined boundaries; its location roughly overlaps with San Nicolás and a portion of Monserrat and Retiro. The Microcentro neighbourhood north of Plaza de Mayo, Argentina’s historic financial centre, is known as “La City Portea” since it houses the parent corporations of the country’s major banks and the Stock Exchange.
12. Plaza De Mayo
The Plaza de Mayo is a city square in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the city’s main foundational site. It was established in 1884 after the Recova building was demolished. The square is a political, financial, and administrative centre that has served as a symbol of calamity, rebellion, and optimism throughout history.
13. Obelisco On Avenida 9 De Julio
The Obelisco de Buenos Aires, or Buenos Aires Obelisk, is a national historic monument and a symbol of the city. It was created in 1936 to mark the quadricentennial of the city’s founding in the Plaza de la Repblica, at the intersection of Avenida Corrientes and 9 de Julio. At the request of Mayor Mariano de Vedia y Mitre, architect Alberto Prebisch designed it.
14. Puente de la Mujer
The bridge was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and is based on a plan that is quite similar to a 250-meter bridge that spans the Guadalquivir River in Seville. It’s a swing bridge with a cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge, but it’s a bit odd because of its asymmetrical layout. It has a single mast with cables supporting a section of the bridge that rotates 90 degrees to allow water traffic to pass underneath it. The far end comes to a resting point on a stabilising pylon when it swings to allow watercraft passage.
15. El Ateneo Bookshop
El Ateneo Grand Splendid is an Argentine bookstore in Buenos Aires. It was named the second most beautiful bookshop in the world by The Guardian in 2008. The The building originally housed the theatre Teatro Grand Splendid, designed by architects Pero and Torres Armengol in 1919. The Grand Splendid was turned into a movie theatre in the late 1920s after years of successful shows, including performances by legendary tango singers Carlos Gardel and Ignacio Corsini.