March 10th
We arrived in Buenos Aires around noon today and had to take a taxi to our hotel. The hotel is located in a great area of the city, Recoleta. The lady at the front desk told us to stay away from San Telmo and La Boca districts. Apparently, when some tourists visited these districts and they went to less visited streets, they were not only robbed of their money but also all of their clothes and shoes that they were wearing. I think we will stay away from these areas … LOL
We had dinner at a place that was a hallway lined with restaurants and bars. Apparently, this is the party area on Saturday night with the younger locals. We ended up having pizza and beer. They charged a service fee that apparently covers costs of bread, setting the table, etc. … basically a money grab. The pizza and two beer cost 551.00ARS ($35.00CDN), it should be noted that the beer was 2 for the price of 1. The pizza was medium sized, and indicated was with mozzarella and cheddar cheese … the cheddar cheese was actually cheez whiz and was the absolute worse pizza I ever ate.
Went back to the room and got our belongings organized and then aimed to go out for a light supper. We walked about 20 blocks trying to find a hamburger joint. For the 20 blocks 95% of the restaurants we passed was either a pizza place or one that sold drinks and sweets! I thought there would be more variety. We finally found a hamburger restaurant called Dean and Denny’s. They had a special on, get 2 beer for 50.00 ARS and they were big glasses! The hamburgers were great, but the sauce they put on it … not so much. Not our best day for eating. LOL
Got back to the room and received a message from a friend of mine from Alberta who lived here in Buenos Aires for a number of years. He had just sent me a message about a great restaurant to try for beef. Talk about great timing! We will definitely be trying that restaurant.
March 11th
After breakfast we headed to the streets. We stopped at a HUGE Church that I wanted to look at inside. IT is located near Las Heras bus stop. It turns out that this Church is under repairs and was closed, so I took a couple architectural snaps of the outside.
We made our way to a very famous cemetery, Recoleta Cemetery. This cemetery has many famous people from Argentina including Presidents, famous women including Evita Peron, and many more. We spent an hour walking around and admiring the architectural designs of many of the mausoleums.
What I was surprised about in this cemetery is that you can see many of the coffins from their entry point. Some of these structures were built in the late 1800’s, so the coffins did very well standing up against time.
We overheard a tour guide explain that in the past if someone did not pay their taxes for twenty years, their structure would “disappear”.
We visited one gravesite where a young lady passed away. They built a statue of her with her dog. The nose is shiny as many people that have visited this cemetery touch the nose of the dog for good luck.
Most of our time today was spent in this area. Map shows what we visited today.
We then made our way to a small park by the cemetery called Plaza Intendente Alvear Giant Tree. In this park was a HUGE tree … at first glance I thought it was five trees, but when you get closer you can see how massive this tree is.
It was planted sometime in the 1700’s and there is a metal statue built that looks like it is holding up one of its branches.
Not too far from here is a cement block that houses a crest on it. On the crest is a symbol of the tree that we visited and can also see from here.
Our next stop was a monument, Floralis Generica, of a flower built out of silver metal. This flower works on solar power and with the sun will open up like a blossom and also point in the direction of the sun.
Apparently, a few years ago there was a huge storm that damaged the equipment and for a while would not open. Just a year ago they fixed the damaged monument, and now, they only have this monument in full working mode during the summer months.
After lunch we made a short detour on our way back to our hotel room and stopped by a metal frame that surrounded a window of a business. In the center of this metal frame was a shape of a heart. Many people have placed locks on this metal frame.
