Buenos Aires
Between 1880 and 1930 six million people arrived, over half of them Italian, and the wealth of the beef and grain trade built boulevards, a French-styled centre and an opera house with acoustics ranked among the world's three best. Tango came out of the port slums, went to Paris and came back respectable, and is still danced socially in neighbourhood milongas.
Why go
Teatro Colón — acoustics ranked with Vienna and Milan, in a 1908 house of seven floors. A European city in South America — Haussmann boulevards, Parisian façades and Italian food. Tango as it actually is — the milongas where people dance socially, not the dinner shows. A bookshop culture — more bookshops per head than any city in the world.
The character
Buenos Aires was rebuilt by immigration. Between 1880 and 1930 six million people arrived, over half of them Italian, and the city they built looks like Paris and Madrid because that is what the money and the architects wanted — grand boulevards, French mansard roofs, and an opera house that opened in 1908 with acoustics that professionals still rank in the world's top three.
That European surface sits on a Latin American reality, and the friction is the city's subject. The economy has collapsed repeatedly within living memory, which produces both fatalism and extraordinary cultural output: the psychoanalysis rate is the highest on earth, the bookshops outnumber any comparable city, the theatre district on Corrientes runs later than Broadway, and tango — invented in the port slums, exported to Paris, reimported as respectable — is danced in neighbourhood milongas by people of every age on ordinary Tuesdays. Porteños talk about their own city more than any people I can think of, usually critically, always at length.
Places of character
Teatro Colón — take the tour if you cannot get a ticket; the horseshoe and the dome are the point. El Ateneo Grand Splendid — a 1919 theatre converted to a bookshop, with the boxes as reading rooms. Recoleta Cemetery — a city of mausoleums, including Evita's, on streets with names. A neighbourhood milonga — Salón Canning or La Catedral; go to watch, arrive after eleven. San Telmo on Sunday — the antiques market along Defensa, and the oldest quarter of the city. Café Tortoni or El Federal — the notable bars, protected by law as part of the city's heritage.
The way to do it
Adjust the clock: dinner at ten, milongas after midnight, and nothing much before eleven in the morning. Take the Colón tour even if you have a ticket — the backstage workshops are extraordinary. Eat beef once and Italian food twice. And walk the neighbourhoods: Palermo, Recoleta, San Telmo and La Boca are four different cities.
One perfect day
Late breakfast of medialunas and coffee, then the Teatro Colón tour at eleven — the auditorium, the workshops where they still make the sets and shoes. Walk through Recoleta to the cemetery for an hour among the mausoleums. Late lunch, Italian, with a bottle. Afternoon in Palermo's bookshops and the Malba museum for Latin American art. A rest, because the evening starts late. Dinner at ten — parrilla, if you have not yet — then a milonga after midnight, where you should watch for the first hour before anyone will dance with you.
Grand hotels
Alvear Palace — 1932 in Recoleta, French in every detail, and the city's grand address since it opened. Palacio Duhau — a 1930s mansion next door with a garden between two buildings.
When to go
Best expression: October and November, or March and April — the southern spring and autumn, warm and clear. Consider: August for the tango festival and world championship. Avoid if possible: January, when the heat is heavy and porteños leave for the coast.
The frame
Ideal stay 4 nights · Minimum 3 nights · Best arrival by air; the ferry from Montevideo is the romantic option · Airport EZE 35 km, AEP 5 km · Walkability excellent within neighbourhoods · Best without a car yes