It was my birthday today and what better place to while away a reflective afternoon than a cemetery, though not just any old cemetery, the Cementerio de la Recoleta, ‘The City of the Dead’ of Buenos Aires. This place is quite marvellous in its ageing decrepitude, piles and piles (some literally piled on top of…

We had a wonderful Sunday morning walk across Puerto Madero and over to the Parque Natural y Reserva Ecologica Costanera Sur – bit of a mouthful, but a wonderful green wetland space on the shore of the Rio Plata. That’s Uruguay somewhere over there, our destination for later this week. Spring has well and truly…

Our dear friend Claudia has joined us in Buenos Aires for a couple of weeks. We’ve been somewhat starved of company since July so we weren’t sure how we’d cope – would we swamp her, would we kill her….? But no, it’s just nice to have company and show madam around this wonderful, intoxicating city…

Avenida 9 de Julio is the widest street in the world at 460 feet, with 18 lanes of traffic. It’s impossible to get a sense of just how enormous this thoroughfare is without being high up on some hotel or apartment roof-terrace or perhaps even in a helicopter – working on the latter. The sidewalks…

‘The Return of the Indian Raid’ by Argentinian artist Ángel della Valle is wide and majestical in its scale and presence in a room at the Bellas Artes Museum in Recoleta. We went looking for Argentine masters and this pretty much fits the bill as Argentina’s ‘first genuinely national work of art’ – specifically painted…

It’s estimated that over 20,000 ‘cartoneros’ now rummage through BA’s trash heaps and ‘dumpster dive’ their way around the barrios collecting re-cyclable rubbish to sell by weight. In recent years, the city government has also initiated a Ciudad Verde plan where registered cartoneros can collect a base salary for emptying the large bell-shaped recycling bins…

The vast majority of Porteños live in apartments, and Porteños love a dog, so for those who work a full day (most of ‘em), the dog walker is the go-to solution in BA. They’ll pick Alonzo (one of the more popular local dog names apparently) up in the morning and return him in the afternoon…

During the early 20th Century, Buenos Aires was booming and extremely wealthy, so much so that in 1914 Harrods of London decided to open their only foreign store right in the heart of the city. A super grand Belle Époque building on Calle San Martin standing proud on a corner position, crowned by an eight-storey cupola,…

The Guardian has ranked El Ateneo in Recoleta as the ‘second most beautiful bookshop in the world’ (so you know, Polare in Masstricht was first at the time, though now I see it’s closed… hmm, so where does that leave El Ateneo I wonder?). Apart from its enormous proportions – 2000 square metres – it…