In the heart of neighbouring barrio Barracas is Pasaje Lanín, a small residential cobblestoned laneway with its humble houses covered in brightly coloured murals and mosaics – urban art in all its kaleidoscopic splendour! It’s essentially an open-air art gallery conceived by local resident and wonderfully named artist Marino Santa María. He decorated his own…

Direct from the ‘Only in Argentina’ files comes a tale of intrigue, passion, untold wealth, jilted love and despair, spite and ultimately, sweet cold-served revenge – straight out of a Latin American telenovela*, though this one set in the glamour of 1920’s and 30’s Buenos Aires. The story has become somewhat legendary in this city…

As you probably know, Argentina experienced a right-wing politically led ‘dirty war’ on its own people between 1976 and 1983 when anyone suspected of involvement in ‘socialism’ or other forms of political dissent were ‘disappeared’ by the Junta. Incredibly, Argentina was said to have ‘hosted’ over 520 clandestine detention centres, many of them of course…

‘I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said— “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these…

The Costanera Sur ecological reserve is the largest, greenest set of lungs in BA at around 350 hectares and a 30-minute walk from the house. I’ve written about it before as it’s a favourite place of ours for a long walk of a morning before the heat and humidity kick in. But now that we’ve…

What a packed Sunday. We had our friends over for lunch from MASH (the British Indian restaurant) which on the face of it was a risky move. I mean who’d willingly cook for a chef, and a difficult one at that. I think it went well, so well in fact that lunch blurred into dinner,…

We’ve had an incredibly hot week here in BA with temps pushing 38 degrees and a blistering sun, rendering it too hot to be out and about on the streets after about 10am. I reckon with the radiant heat coming off the buildings, roads and pavements it’s at least 5 degrees on that, so no…

The imposing Palacio de Correos y Telégrafos in Retiro, built in typical French Second Empire style, opened in BA in 1928 after 40 years of construction and much political in-fighting. Fast forward 87 years and again, after much wrangling, controversy, scandal, restoration and rejuvenation, the Centro Cultural Kirchner (CCK) opened to much fanfare in 2015…

It’s an easy 20 min walk from San Telmo, down Defensa and into the historic Plaza de Mayo, known of course for the Casa Rosada, where Evita would address the vast crowds from a small balcony, but also as the site of first European settlement in 1536. There’s some impressive early colonial architecture in BA…

We’ve been in Casa San Telmo for three weeks now, our home away from home, with another month and a half ahead of us before we leave Argentina at the end of March. We’re easing into a new-found balance of work and play, with Ants plugging back into his creative mojo after our incredible Patagonian…