Buenos Aires (the "Paris of the South" — a claim that is not entirely hyperbole: the Avenida de Mayo (1894, modelled on the Haussmanian boulevard), the café culture, the bookshops, the psychoanalysis culture (Buenos Aires has more psychoanalysts per capita than any other city in the world), and the literary tradition (Borges, Cortázar, Sábato) all reflect a city that has always looked across the Atlantic for its identity) is the cultural capital of Latin America: a city of 3 million in the city proper (15 million in the metro area) where tango was born in the brothels and conventillos of La Boca in the 1880s, where the most passionate football culture in the world (Boca Juniors vs. River Plate — the Superclásico — is the most intense football rivalry on the planet), and where the finest steak on earth (Argentine beef, grass-fed on the Pampas) is eaten at a parrilla at midnight. Buenos Aires is simultaneously European in its architecture and Latin American in its heat — and the combination is irresistible.
The Feria de San Telmo (Defensa Street, San Telmo — the Sunday street fair (and daily indoor market at Mercado de San Telmo, 1897) in the oldest neighbourhood of Buenos Aires: antique traders, street performers, tango dancers, leather goods, silver mate gourds and the extraordinary density of colonial-era buildings (San Telmo survived the 1871 yellow fever epidemic that drove the elite north — while the rest of the city was rebuilt, San Telmo froze, preserving its 19th-century character)). Go Sunday for the outdoor fair.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideAn Argentine asado (the traditional wood-fire or charcoal grill — not a BBQ but a 3-hour ritual. The cuts: vacío (flank steak), entraña (skirt steak — the most prized cut, from the diaphragm, with extraordinary marbling), costillar (rack of ribs), mollejas (sweetbreads — thymus gland, the sweetest offal in the world), morcilla (blood sausage) and chorizo (pork sausage), eaten with chimichurri (olive oil, parsley, garlic, dried chilli) at a traditional parrilla. The beef is grass-fed from the Pampas — completely different in flavour from grain-fed beef) at El Desnivel (Defensa 855, San Telmo, €8 for a full meal with wine).
La Boca (the colourful working-class neighbourhood at the mouth of the Riachuelo river — the name means "the mouth" — where Italian immigrants from Genoa built houses with corrugated iron painted in the leftover boat paint (the only pigment available), creating the polychrome streetscape that became El Caminito (the Little Path, named after the tango song), the most photogenic street in Argentina. The Boca Juniors stadium (La Bombonera — "the chocolate box," the most atmospheric football stadium in Latin America) is 3 blocks from El Caminito.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideA milonga (the social tango dance event — Buenos Aires has 200+ milongas per week, the most famous: La Catedral (Sarmiento 4006, a converted warehouse with a 1920s dance floor, informal, young crowd, lessons from 9pm), El Beso (Riobamba 416, the most traditional, codes strictly observed) and Confitería Ideal (Suipacha 384, the most beautiful ballroom in Buenos Aires, 1912). The Buenos Aires tango is completely different from the stage tango performed for tourists — intimate, conversational, danced in close embrace, with far less leg-flicking than the show version.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideCementerio de la Recoleta (Junín 1760 — the most visited site in Argentina: the French-style mausoleum city of 4,691 vaults, the most elaborate collection of funerary architecture in Latin America, where Buenos Aires' most illustrious citizens are interred: Eva Perón (tomb daily mobbed by visitors), Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Raúl Alfonsín. The cemetery is a city in miniature — marble Art Nouveau mausoleums, Gothic chapels, obelisks and Egyptian revival temples along named streets that even have addresses).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePalermo (the tree-lined residential neighbourhood northwest of the centre — divided into Palermo Soho (the boutique shopping and restaurant strip: Armenia Street, Thames Street, Serrano Square with its design shops and concept stores) and Palermo Hollywood (the bar and restaurant strip, named for the TV production studios that were here)) is where Buenos Aires is at its most pleasant and liveable: the jacaranda trees in bloom (October–November), the outdoor terraces and the combination of Argentine and international restaurants.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLa Bombonera (Estadio Alberto J. Armando — 49,000 capacity, the most intimate and atmospheric football stadium in the world, the home of Boca Juniors (Maradona's club, Tevez's club — the most popular club in Argentina) in the La Boca neighbourhood. The stadium tour (the museum, the changing rooms, the players' tunnel and the pitch) is available daily when no match. The Museo de la Pasión Boquense (the Boca Juniors museum in the stadium) is the finest football museum in South America.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideDon Julio (Guatemala 4699, Palermo — consistently Argentina's best restaurant: the finest cuts of Argentine beef (ojo de bife (ribeye), bife de chorizo (sirloin), and the legendary lomo (tenderloin)) cooked over quebracho wood, with an 800-label Argentine wine list (the finest in the country) and the best dulce de leche desserts. Book 2–3 months in advance or try La Cabrera (also Palermo — equally legendary for the side dishes that arrive with every steak: 10+ small bowls of accompaniments including mashed pumpkin, roast peppers, potato salad and mushrooms).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Plaza de Mayo (the political heart of Argentina since 1580 — the white obelisks of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (the Mothers of the Disappeared, who have marched every Thursday at 3:30pm since 1977 demanding information about their disappeared children from the military dictatorship), the Pirámide de Mayo (1811, the oldest national monument in Argentina), and the Casa Rosada (the Pink House — the presidential palace, painted pink by blending white paint with beef blood according to tradition, the balcony from which Evita gave her speeches)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA — 2001, architect Gastón Atelman: the finest Latin American art museum in the world: Frida Kahlo's Autoretrato con Changuito (1945), Diego Rivera's El matemático (1919), Antonio Berni's Manifestación (1934 — the most important painting of Argentine social realism), Wifredo Lam, Fernando Botero and the most comprehensive permanent collection of 20th-century Latin American art, plus world-class temporary exhibitions).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Avenida de Mayo (the Haussmannian boulevard connecting the Casa Rosada to the National Congress — built 1894, lined with Spanish and French eclectic buildings) and Café Tortoni (Avenida de Mayo 829 — the oldest café in Buenos Aires, opened 1858 by the French immigrant Jean Touan. Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Gardel (the tango legend), Violeta Parra and every Argentine intellectual of the 20th century drank coffee or had a cortado at the wooden tables. The tango shows in the basement (nightly) are touristy but done with genuine skill).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Teatro Colón (Cerrito 628 — opened 1908, the most important opera house in Latin America and one of the five finest acoustically in the world (cited alongside La Scala, Vienna, the Met and Covent Garden): 2,500 seats, the largest stage in the world at the time of its construction, 7 levels of seating. Tours available daily (the backstage and the main hall are extraordinary). Evening performances (opera, ballet, symphony) are the finest cultural experience in Buenos Aires.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Buenos Aires night ends late — midnight dinner is normal, 2am is not exceptional. The medialuna (the Argentine half-moon croissant — sweeter, glazed, denser than the French original, served with a café con leche (espresso with hot milk) at any hour of the day or night) at a confitería (the traditional Buenos Aires pastry café) at midnight is the most authentic local experience. Bar El Federal (San Telmo, since 1864) or Las Violetas (Rivadavia 3899, the most beautiful café interior in Buenos Aires).