5 Days in Buenos Aires

Almost everything that matters in Argentine politics has happened on this square. It took its present form in 1884, when the colonial arcade that split it in two was demolished, and in the middle stands the May Pyramid, put up in 1811 on the first anniversary of the May Revolution. Since 30 April 1977 the square has also belonged to the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, mothers who began walking here in defiance of the military dictatorship to demand news of their disappeared children, and who still march around the pyramid on Thursdays at 3:30 pm.

The pink building at the east end is the Casa Rosada, the president's workplace. Under President Sarmiento its exterior was painted pink, and it was finished in its present form in 1898. The president lives elsewhere, in Olivos. Behind it, at Paseo Colón 100, the free Museo Casa Rosada is listed as open Wednesday to Sunday; visits to the palace itself change, so check the official site.

The cathedral on the corner of San Martín and Rivadavia looks like a Greek temple stuck onto a church, because from 1826 two French architects gave it a neoclassical front inspired by the Palais Bourbon in Paris. Inside, the right aisle leads to the mausoleum of General José de San Martín, who helped free Argentina, Chile and Peru from Spain: a black sarcophagus guarded by three female figures, one for each country. Jorge Bergoglio was archbishop of Buenos Aires here for fifteen years before he became Pope Francis.

The colonial building across the square is the Cabildo, the town council of the Spanish city and, for a long stretch, the city prison. In 1810 the Primera Junta, the first Argentine government, set up the public library here. It has been listed as open Wednesday to Sunday, so a Saturday works.

Avenida de Mayo runs from the Casa Rosada towards the Congress, and a few blocks along it, at number 825, is Café Tortoni. It first opened in 1858, run by a French immigrant, and took its name from a cafe on the Boulevard des Italiens in Paris. It is regularly listed among the most beautiful cafes in the world, which is also why it is full of visitors.

Order the classics: a cortado (espresso with a splash of milk) with medialunas, the small sweet croissants of every Argentine breakfast, or a hot chocolate with churros. The room is worth the wait; mid-afternoon on a weekday is quieter.

Further along the avenue, at number 1370, stands the strangest office building in South America. The Italian architect Mario Palanti designed the Palacio Barolo for Luis Barolo, an immigrant who made a fortune in knitted fabrics, and built it to the plan of Dante's Divine Comedy: it is 100 metres tall, one metre for each canto, and the lighted beacon on top stands for the nine choirs of angels. Finished in 1923, it was the tallest building in South America until the Kavanagh tower took the record in the 1930s.

You can only go inside on a guided tour, which takes about 90 minutes and ends with the climb to the lighthouse and a view over the avenue. Wear shoes you can climb stairs in; parts of the tour are not suited to wheelchairs.

The Teatro Colón opened on 25 May 1908 with Verdi's Aida, after twenty years of building and three architects: Francesco Tamburini, Vittorio Meano and Julio Dormal. The earlier Colón, from 1857, stood on Plaza de Mayo until 1888, and the new one went up on the site of the city's first railway terminus. It seats about 2,500 people and is one of the great opera houses of the Americas.

The 50-minute guided tour covers the foyer, the Gallery of Busts, the Golden Hall and the main auditorium. It runs every day from 10:00 to 16:45, in English at 11:00, 12:00, 13:00 and 15:00.

Five minutes' walk from the Colón, the Obelisco stands at the crossing of Corrientes and Avenida 9 de Julio. It went up in 1936 for the 400th anniversary of the first founding of the city. The avenue is about 110 metres wide, up to seven lanes each way, and named for Independence Day, 9 July 1816. Crossing it takes more than one green light, so don't try to do it in one go.

Corrientes is the street of theaters and old pizzerias. Walk a few blocks, look at the posters and have a slice of the thick porteño pizza at one of the old places such as Güerrin before your show. There is more on pizza in the food section.

Tango began in the 1880s in the poor port districts along the Río de la Plata, shared between Argentina and Uruguay, and UNESCO listed it as intangible heritage in 2009. The dinner shows are theater, not a dance floor: musicians, a singer, dancers on a stage. They're a good first night, and they're made for visitors. Esquina Carlos Gardel in Abasto, Piazzolla Tango in the Galería Güemes and Rojo Tango in Puerto Madero are among the venues that run them.

Prices vary a lot between a show only and a show with dinner, so compare the options on each venue's own site and book ahead. Day five has the other kind of tango, the milonga, where porteños dance for themselves.

San Telmo is the oldest barrio of Buenos Aires. In colonial times it was home to dockworkers and brickmakers, and the city's first industrial quarter, and later painters, jazz clubs and antique dealers moved into its old houses. On Sundays Plaza Dorrego fills with the antiques fair, usually from 10 to 17 hours, and the stalls spill along the cobbled streets around it.

Don't expect treasure, expect atmosphere: old objects, street musicians and, on the square, tango dancers performing for tips. Walk slowly from the plaza along Defensa, past the covered Mercado de San Telmo at the corner of Carlos Calvo, which keeps its own hours. The Sunday crowd is also where pickpockets work, so keep your phone in your front pocket.

El Desnivel, on Calle Defensa, is a parrilla in the neighborhood style, a bodegón with big plates, and it is open on Sundays from midday. Order a bife de chorizo, a thick sirloin steak, a provoleta (grilled cheese) to start and a salad to share. Say jugoso if you want the steak juicy, because the default is more cooked than many visitors expect.

Queues build at weekends. If the line is long, look for a stand around the Feria that sells choripán, the grilled chorizo sandwich that Argentines eat before football and at outdoor events.

La Boca, "the mouth", is named for the mouth of the Riachuelo, probably, and it filled with immigrants, many of them from Liguria around Genoa. In 1882, after a long general strike, the neighborhood seceded from Argentina and raised the Genoese flag, until President Roca tore it down himself. Caminito is a short alley that follows the line of an old railway, and it became famous because it inspired the 1926 tango Caminito by Juan de Dios Filiberto.

The honest verdict: it is a tourist street of painted facades, souvenir stalls and dancers who pose for a tip, and it can feel staged. Prices here tend to run two or three times higher than elsewhere in the city. Go in daylight, stay on Caminito and the streets next to it, and don't wander into the side streets or come at night. There is no Subte to La Boca, so take a bus or a taxi.

A few minutes' walk from Caminito is La Bombonera, the "chocolate box", named for the shape of the stadium. It is the home of Boca Juniors, the club of Maradona, and it is widely counted among the most iconic grounds in the world. The Museo de la Pasión Boquense, at Brandsen 805, tells the club's story, and the combined ticket includes a stadium visit. Booking sites list it as open daily from 10:00 to 18:00 with the last entry at 17:30, but match days restrict the stadium.

Seeing a match here is harder than it sounds, and day five explains how. This visit is the easy version, in daylight, without the crowd.

From La Boca take a taxi to the other end of the old docks. The Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur is a 350-hectare tract of low land on the river bank, on the eastern side of Puerto Madero, with a green and quiet look that surprises people who arrive from the traffic. In 2026 it celebrated forty years as a reserve.

It is free and open Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 18:00, and it closes in strong wind and persistent rain.

Puerto Madero is the old port, contracted to the businessman Eduardo Madero in 1882, built from 1887 and finished in 1897, and obsolete about ten years later when larger cargo ships arrived. A new port opened in 1926, and in 1989 a joint company was set up to redevelop the old docks. Now they hold restaurants, offices and flats, and it has the highest property values of any barrio in the city.

Walk the docks at sunset. The Puente de la Mujer, a footbridge that rotates 90 degrees to let boats through, is the symbol of the new Puerto Madero, and the Fragata Sarmiento, a museum ship, is moored nearby. Dinner here means expensive grills such as Cabaña Las Lilas; go back to San Telmo to spend less.

The cemetery opened on 17 November 1822 in the former garden of a monastery, the first public cemetery in the city. When the richest families moved into the neighborhood toward the end of the 1800s it became their favorite necropolis, laid out in blocks like a small city, with marble mausoleums in styles from Art Nouveau to neo-Gothic and materials largely imported from Paris and Milan. It covers 5.5 hectares; 94 vaults are national monuments, and presidents, Nobel winners and generals are buried here.

The most visited tomb is that of Eva Perón, in the Duarte family vault. After she died in 1952, her body was hidden after the 1955 coup. It was found in 1971 in a crypt in Milan under a false name, and after years in Spain it was buried in the family vault in Recoleta. For something stranger, look for the vault of Liliana Crociati, a young woman who died on her honeymoon: her parents reproduced her bedroom inside and put a statue of her in her wedding dress at the entrance.

Next to the cemetery, the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar belonged to the Recoletos monks, the order the neighborhood is named for, and the cemetery was laid out in their old orchard. Look inside, then cross to La Biela, a cafe on the corner of the square. Order a cortado with medialunas and watch the neighborhood go by. These are Recoleta prices, so keep it short.

Ten minutes' walk from the cemetery, a huge steel and aluminum flower rises from a reflecting pool in the middle of a park on Plaza de las Naciones Unidas. The architect Eduardo Catalano gave it to the city, and it was made in 2002 to close its petals in the evening and open them again in the morning, like a real flower. Catalano called it a synthesis of all flowers and a hope reborn every day.

Walk around it for the different angles. Don't plan the visit around the petals: whether they are moving on the day you go is a matter of luck.

On Avenida Santa Fe, a theater from 1919 is now a bookshop that National Geographic named the most beautiful in the world in 2019. The Teatro Gran Splendid was built for the impresario Max Glücksmann, and tango stars including Carlos Gardel performed on its stage. In 1929 it showed the first sound films in Argentina, and in the early 2000s the cinema seats came out and the shelves went in.

Buenos Aires is said to have more bookshops per person than any other city, and this is the grandest of them. It's crowded, so go early in the afternoon, take your photo quickly and then actually look at the books.

MALBA, the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, stands on Avenida Figueroa Alcorta, and it is the place to see how artists across the region, from Argentina to Mexico, worked in the 20th century. It is a good rainy-day stop and a calm one after the cemetery.

It is open Thursday to Monday from 12:00 to 20:00 and on Wednesdays from 11:00 to 20:00, and closed on Tuesdays, so a Monday works. Allow an hour and a half, and check the ticket page for the current price.

The Bosques de Palermo, the Parque Tres de Febrero, was created in 1874 under President Sarmiento on land that had belonged to the country estate of Juan Manuel de Rosas, confiscated after his fall in 1852. It is a large park of lakes, where you can rent paddle boats, the Rosedal rose garden, the Japanese Gardens from 1967 and the Galileo Galilei planetarium from 1966.

Walk from MALBA to the Rosedal and the lake and sit there for the late light.

For the first proper parrilla, go to Don Julio at Guatemala 4691 in Palermo, one of the best-known steakhouses in Argentina and one that the press ranks among the world's top restaurants. Order bife de chorizo, ojo de bife (rib-eye) or the asado de tira, plus a provoleta and a Malbec from Mendoza, and let the staff explain the cuts.

Book as early as you can, ideally weeks ahead, and be ready for a late table: Argentines eat dinner at around 10 pm. If Don Julio is full, the neighborhood has other good grills; look for an open fire and a queue of locals.

Ferries leave from the docks by Puerto Madero. Buquebus uses the northern terminal on Avenida Antártida Argentina 821, and Colonia Express a different one at the southern end of the docks, about 2 km away, so check the address on your ticket and tell the taxi driver the company, not just "the ferry". The fast boats cross the Río de la Plata in roughly an hour to an hour and a quarter.

Take a morning boat and an evening one back, so you have six or seven hours in town. Check the entry rules for Uruguay for your passport before you book.

Colonia was founded by the Portuguese: Manuel Lobo landed on 20 January 1680 with about 400 soldiers and craftsmen, and the Spanish took the town in August of the same year. It was then fought over between the two crowns, which is why its streets mix Portuguese and Spanish styles. The historic quarter is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and around 32,000 people live in the town.

Enter through the Portón de Campo, the old town gate, and walk the quarter, which is small enough to see on foot in a morning. The streets are cobbled and uneven; this is a place for slow walking, not for ticking things off.

The Calle de los Suspiros, the Street of Sighs, is a short cobbled lane of low houses and the photo everyone takes. Close by is the Plaza Mayor 25 de Mayo, the main square of the old town, next to the ruins of the San Francisco convent and the Basílica del Santísimo Sacramento.

The quarter has a handful of small museums (Portuguese, Spanish, tile and municipal), but their closing days vary and some close on Tuesdays or other weekdays, so check at the tourist office near the gate before you plan around one. If you only have time for one thing, walk the square, look at the old houses and climb the lighthouse.

Restaurants in the old town cluster in the streets near the river; La Bodeguita and El Torreón are two that are listed in the quarter. Uruguay's own dish is the chivito, a steak sandwich with ham, cheese, egg and salad, and the grills here serve the same beef you ate in Buenos Aires.

Eat on a terrace if the weather allows, and order less than you think. You'll likely pay in Uruguayan pesos, so bring a card.

Climb the lighthouse in the old quarter for the view over the roofs and the river. It is open until sunset, so go well before the last boat. Then walk along the Rambla, the waterfront promenade, for the last light over the water towards Buenos Aires. The terminal is a short walk from the old town, but check-in and immigration take time on the way back, too.

The National Fine Arts Museum, at Avenida del Libertador 1473 in Recoleta, is free, and it hosts works by Goya, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Rodin, Manet and Chagall, among others, alongside Argentine painting.

You don't have to see everything. Pick the European masters or the Argentine rooms, and leave when your attention does. It is open Tuesday to Sunday and shut on Mondays, with hours that vary between sources, so check on the day.

Eva Perón died in 1952 at 33, and Argentines still argue about her. She was born into poverty in a village in the Pampas, moved to Buenos Aires at 15 to become an actress, married Juan Perón in 1945 and became a central figure of Peronism. The Museo Evita, at Lafinur 2988 in Palermo, tells her story, and it is a good way to understand why her tomb in Recoleta is the most visited in the cemetery.

Open Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00 to 19:00. The museum also runs tours and a cafe, and some agencies sell tickets with an audioguide.

Palermo Soho is the small area of Palermo Viejo around Plaza Serrano (officially Plazoleta Cortázar), a neighborhood of low houses, boutiques, bars and restaurants. Borges lived as a child on a square nearby, and a poem of his names it. It is a good place for a long lunch and a better one for the evening.

Have empanadas with a beer, or find a bodegón and order a milanesa. The streets around Plaza Serrano are quieter at lunchtime than at night. Afterwards walk north-west to Palermo Hollywood to see the other side.

Palermo Hollywood got its name in the mid-1990s, when TV and radio producers moved into the area between Córdoba, Santa Fe, Dorrego and Juan B. Justo avenues. It sits to the north-west of Soho and has bars, restaurants and design shops.

Wander without a plan, and if you want something to take home, pick up a jar of dulce de leche or a box of alfajores.

Football is the one thing Argentines never joke about. The honest answer to "how can a foreigner go" is that most tickets for Boca and River go to club members, and the Superclásico between them is the hottest ticket in the city. Visiting fans have been banned from Argentine stadiums, so the whole crowd is the home side. The ways in are a licensed tour operator, a hospitality package or a reseller. One specialist quotes roughly 160-400 USD for a Boca match through an operator and 600 USD or more for the Superclásico; a Boca ticket offered for 50 USD is a scam.

On your own, the usual advice is that River Plate, at the Monumental in Núñez, is easier than La Bombonera, and that a seat (platea) is safer than the terrace. Don't wear the shirt of either big club or a Brazil or England national jersey, take your passport (police checkpoints) and go with a local if you can. Fixtures are often confirmed only about two weeks ahead, so this stop works only if a home game falls on your dates.

If there is no match on your dates, or after one that ends early, this is the night. A milonga is both a type of tango dance and a place where one is held, and it is where porteños go to dance for themselves. Night milongas start around 23:00 and fill up around 1:30, running to 5 or 6 am; afternoon ones (matinées) finish by 20:00 to 22:00. Salón Canning in Palermo, at Scalabrini Ortiz 1331, is a traditional room with milongas on several nights; La Viruta, at Armenia 1366, is the one most often recommended to beginners; and Confitería Ideal in the center has milongas too.

There is etiquette. Invitations come with a look and a nod (the cabeceo) rather than someone walking over, so mind your eye contact if you don't want to dance. Watching from a table is half the experience. Check the current schedule, because the nights and organizers rotate.