Highlight: Buenos Aires City Tour and visit to Casa Rosada (Pink House)
We awoke to another beautiful clear day in Buenos Aires. We slept until a little after 8 since the tango show last night didn't end until midnight and it was late when we got back. We had breakfast at the hotel and then met Lucelia at 10 am for our City Tour.
We drove by the 'Pyramid' that looks like a small Washington Monument and is on the Avenida 9 July. The Argentinian people use it to celebrate things - like soccer match wins! We drove by the Colon Opera House - a huge, beautiful structure that is supposed to have perfect acoustic. It is undergoing renovations so we were unable to go inside.
We then went to May Square. This is where a lot of the government buildings are. The Presidential Palace is here - known as Casa Rosada or the Pink House. This is where Eva Peron addressed the people from one of the balconies. This is also where Madonna filmed her speeches to the people in the movie Evita. The President (a woman now) doesn't live here, but is flown by helicopter here each day from the Persidential home about 53 kilometers away.
One of the government buildings has bullet holes all over the side and they have decided to leave the holes as a reminder of that incident rather than to fix them.
We went into the National Cathedral - a huge church with beautiful mosaic tile floors. San Martin who led the revolution for independence is entombed here in an elaborate tomb. His coffin is guarded by an honor guard and we got to see the Changing of the Guards.
There are 36 million people in Argentina and about 3 million in Buenos Aires.
We then toured around several different neighborhoods - San Telmo (tickle me Elmo!) which is the old aristocratic neighborhood, LaBoca where they are lots of shops, tango halls, colorful homes painted all kinds of bright colors an Camisito shops, then on to Puerto Madero where the most wealthy live in very expensive homes, and finally Palermo where there is a large park with many lakes and statues.
We went back to the waterfront around 2 pm and Lucelia dropped us off for lunch at Puerto Cristal where we had a wonderful seafood paella for two, salad, and wine. I had to try the Isla Flottante - but it wasn't as good as what you get in Paris.
We then took a long walk to walk off the huge lunch. We passed a protest where people were laying in the streets - something about the casino workers but we didn't linger as the riot police were positioned to move in and clear them out with billy clubs and canisters of gas!
We made our way to Florida Street - a pedestrian street where there are shops of all kinds. We cased it out and will go back there on Tuesday to check out the shops more closely. We had our afternoon siesta (but they don't really do that in Argentina) and got ready for dinner at a steak restaurant. They have lots of wonderful beef in Argentina.
We took a taxi to the Palermo Soho District to a local restaurant - La Cabrera. We wanted a local versus a touristy restaurant and this one was right on target. We got one of the last tables outside on the sidewalk since it was a warm beautiful night. Shortly, there were at least a dozen groups of people waiting for tables - some waited over an hour. The restaurant next door - Casa Blanca - was doing hardly any business so the maitre d' kept coming to the people waiting at La Cabrera and offered them hors d'oeuvres. It was funny to watch him trying to steal customers. None gave up their place though as the food was incredible. We had enough steak to feed the entire family at Thanksgiving plus over a dozen small dishes of various things - garlic, onions, sweet potatoes, etc. The steak was devine. No way I could eat it all, but Tim devoured his entire side of beef!
We took a taxi back to the hotel about 11:30 and went to bed exhausted - and FULL!
Larry and Tim
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