5 Days in Mendoza

Start where the old city used to be. After the 1861 earthquake the authorities moved Mendoza about a kilometer southwest, and this corner of the Área Fundacional was left behind with the ruins of the church of San Francisco, which the quake destroyed. They are still there, a reminder of the old city that stood on this ground.

It is a small site and a quiet one, which is the point: the ruins are the best way to understand why the rest of the city looks the way it does. Give it half an hour, then walk or taxi to the main square. The Museo del Área Fundacional is right next door.

Plaza Independencia is the middle one of the five plazas of the rebuilt city, opened in 1863 as a park with a balustrade and an artificial lake. It has changed a lot since. The Plaza Hotel and the Teatro Independencia arrived in the 1920s, an underground Museum of Modern Art opened below it in 1968, and a dancing-water fountain has run since July 2021. The tourist office sits on the western side and gives out maps.

Walk across it, look at the big coat of arms and the frieze of 1995 called La Libertad, esa gesta anónima, and come back after dark. At night the buildings around the square are lit and the fountain plays to pop music, a cheesy show that families like.

Five minutes south is Plaza España, the prettiest of the five and the one most people photograph. It is decorated with Andalusian and Spanish motifs, and the central wall carries images and texts about the Spanish colonization, crowned by a statue. It is a nod to the link between Mendoza and the old country.

Read the wall panels, then sit for ten minutes in the shade, which is the actual reason to come.

A few blocks from Plaza Chile, the Mercado Central is Mendoza's market, and it has been one since 1883, when Luis Lavoisier started an open-air fair here. The metal sheds with marble counters were added between 1922 and 1924, a big fire in the late 1960s forced a full rebuild, and today it is a covered hall with entrances on Las Heras, Patricias Mendocinas and General Paz. A local historian called it the first shopping center in Mendoza.

Come for lunch before the siesta. Stalls sell spices, cured meats, coffee and fruit, and the food court has cafés, pizzerias and parrillas. Have empanadas and a glass of wine at the counter, buy spices or coffee to take home, and go before the siesta starts.

Mendoza's big park was created by law in 1896 as the Parque del Oeste, designed by the French landscape architect Carlos Thays, and renamed after San Martín in 1947. It covers around 400 hectares, and locals claim it is the biggest city park in South America. The iron gates at the entrance, the Portones, were bought in Paris and have stood here since 1907.

Walk in through the gates, follow the avenue to the artificial lake, and stop at the rowing club, where you can try water sports. Rent a bike if you want to cover the whole park. The Teatro Griego Frank Romero Day, the open-air amphitheater, is where the Vendimia festival climaxes every March. The natural-history museum is also here. The zoo closed in 2016 for remodeling and we found no reopening, so do not plan around it.

Aristides Villanueva is Mendoza's restaurant street, running west from Avenida Belgrano toward the park. It is hard to have a bad meal here, though avoid the special offers near the hostels. Kitchens open around 9 pm, few people arrive before 10, and on Fridays and Saturdays it does not get going until 11.

Order a parrilla for two with a bottle of Malbec, or ask for a half bottle (a 3/8, about 375 ml) if you do not want a full one.

Head 36 km south to Agrelo, in Luján de Cuyo, where the Catena family built a winery shaped like a Mayan pyramid, opened in April 2001. It is the winery that changed how the world thinks about Argentine Malbec: Nicolás Catena planted a vineyard at about 1,500 meters at Gualtallary in 1994 to see what altitude did to the grape.

Catena is visit-by-reservation only, with no walk-ins, so book online a week or more ahead. The winery's own site listed 175,000 ARS per person for a two-hour visit from March to June 2026, and prices are reset every season, so expect more now. Ask whether the lunch restaurant is booked separately, because it is.

On the way back toward the city, in the small town of Mayor Drummond, is the house of the painter Fernando Fader, an 1890 mansion that now holds many of his paintings. It is the quiet, non-wine stop of the day, and the provincial government lists free entry. The museum is at San Martín 3651.

Fader is not a household name abroad, but the house is worth the detour as a break from tasting. It is about 15 km south of the center.

Maipú is the closest wine district to the city and the one best suited to bikes. A small bodega called Argentia sits a short walk from the Gutiérrez train station and offers tastings, a short tour and a meal on the veranda, under the vine trellis or on the lawn. A listing from March 2026 gave 73,500 ARS for two people.

Book a table, since it is a small place, and eat early: you need to be at the bike shop by 14:30, so lunch here by about 13:00 and skip a second course if the morning ran late.

Maipú is at the center of an old wine-growing area, and the way to see it is by bike. Maipu Bikes rents mountain bikes with a helmet, a route map and mechanical help on the circuit. The route starts in Coquimbito and links bodegas such as Trapiche, Viña El Cerno, Mevi and Entre Olivos, before you return the bike for a free Malbec happy hour.

Be honest with yourself about this ride: it is not a quiet country lane. The route mixes bike paths with streets shared with cars, buses and trucks, plus open irrigation ditches and uneven pavement. Taste lightly, ride slowly and skip the last glass.

The splurge dinner is 1884, the restaurant of chef Francis Mallmann inside the Escorihuela Gascón winery in Godoy Cruz, at Belgrano 1188. Michelin describes a contemporary dining room, a bar and a terrace where the grill, the wood fire and the roasting oven sit.

Expect expensive: a mid-2026 article put dinner for two at from 420,000 ARS before wine. Michelin lists dinner service from 19:00 to 21:30 and a closed day on Monday, and the restaurant takes its own bookings, so call or write ahead. If the price is too much, the wine list alone is worth a glass.

The first stop, 109 km from the city on Provincial Route 89 at Los Árboles in Tunuyán, is Salentein, a winery with an art space (Killka) set against the Andes. It is a good place to see the Uco Valley's scale before the tastings begin.

The Uco Valley lies in the departments of San Carlos, Tunuyán and Tupungato, at roughly 900 to 1,700 meters. It gets more than 250 sunny days a year and around 200 mm of rain, and the swing between day and night temperatures averages about 15 degrees. Resellers sell a premium tasting of about an hour and a half from roughly 40 USD; the winery lists no prices.

Further south, at Paraje Altamira in San Carlos, is the Zuccardi winery in the Uco Valley. Altamira is one of the valley's named wine zones, alongside Gualtallary, La Consulta and Los Chacayes.

Tours leave at 9:30, 11:00, 12:30 and 15:00, and every program is by reservation, booked at zuccardi.meitre.com. The tour walks the winery and vineyards and ends in a Malbec-led tasting of wines from different parts of the valley. The winery lists no prices on its site and says rates can change without notice.

The restaurant at Zuccardi, Piedra Infinita Cocina, serves a seasonal tasting menu with wine pairings, in five options. It seats about 50, lunch runs from 12:30 to 14:00, and bookings are separate from the tour at piedrainfinita.meitre.com. Lunch prices include the winery visit.

Book as early as you can in high season, since the room is small. Pace yourself on the wine: you still have a long ride home.

On the way back north, Clos de los Siete is less one winery than a wine community: an 850-hectare estate at Vista Flores, Tunuyán, with five wineries inside it, of which DiamAndes and Monteviejo (the lunch stop on most tours) take visitors. It appears on agency itineraries, and one full-day tour pairs it with a four-course lunch at Monteviejo or DiamAndes.

We could not confirm the visiting hours or prices on an official page, and one tour operator lists DiamAndes Tuesday to Sunday, so ask your driver or agency. Do not squeeze in one more tasting if you are tired: the road home along the Andes is a fine ending too.

About 63 km from the city, the road reaches Potrerillos, where a dam on the Mendoza river has made a lake 12 km long and up to 3 km wide. It is also where the rafting starts, and you will be back here on day five.

Stop at a lay-by for the view of the reservoir against the mountains, then carry on. This is the first moment the desert city feels far away.

Uspallata is a high-desert town at 2,039 m, 116 km from Mendoza by road. In January 1817 the Army of the Andes crossed through the Uspallata pass, led by Juan Gregorio de las Heras on this route, on its way to liberate Chile; the monument on Cerro de la Gloria, where day five ends, commemorates that campaign.

It is a good stop for coffee and fuel. The town is also kilometer 0 of Ruta 149 toward San Juan. Sort out lunch here: we found no confirmed restaurants higher up the road.

At 2,700 m, 183 km from the city, Puente del Inca is a natural arch over the Las Cuevas river, 53.4 m long, 27.6 m wide and 10.2 m thick, 19.2 m above the water. The greens, oranges and ochres on its rock come from mineral layers left by the warm springs and from the microbes that live in them.

Next to the arch are the ruins of an early 20th-century thermal hotel, badly damaged by a landslide in 1965 and abandoned since. Walk around the arch and the ruins and look at it from the river side too. Engineers have estimated the arch is stable under present conditions, though it shows signs of deterioration.

A few minutes past Puente del Inca is the entrance to Aconcagua Provincial Park, at the Quebrada de los Horcones. Aconcagua is about 6,960 m, the highest mountain outside Asia. The park's hiking season runs from 1 November to 30 April, and in 2025-26 a record of over 106,000 people walked the Horcones valley.

Do the self-guided trail around the Laguna de Horcones, the park's main lake, and look for the summit above the valley. Real hikes toward the mountain, such as the walk to the Confluencia camp, take about four hours from Horcones and need a permit. A day visit is not a climb: you are here for the view and the air.

The last stop is Las Cuevas, a hamlet of fewer than 20 permanent residents near the Chile border and the start of the international tunnel. Above it, at 3,834 m, stands the Cristo Redentor de los Andes, a statue by Mateo Alonso inaugurated on 13 March 1904 to celebrate the peaceful end of a border dispute with Chile, settled by the 1902 treaties and British arbitration.

The winding road to the monument from Las Cuevas is 9 km and open only in summer when there is no snow. The provincial roads agency clears it of ice each year, but we found no confirmation that it is open this season, so ask locally before you commit. The pass itself is the key status check: as of 2-6 November 2026 it was open 24 hours to all vehicles and chains were compulsory, but it closed more than once in October after snow (to private cars from 18 to 23 October), and in the winter it was shut for 34 days.

Rafting starts in Potrerillos, about 65 km from the city. The river is lowest from April to September and highest in summer, when the rapids are at their most intense. Operators supply the wetsuit, boots, vest and helmet.

A 12 km run without transfer from a reseller was about 35 USD for around two hours. A six-hour version with hotel pickup from Mendoza was about 120 USD. Operators in the area include Potrerillos Explorer, Río Mendoza and, for a gentler float below the reservoir, Betancourt Rafting. Prices come from resellers, not the operators, so confirm before booking.

On the way back, 41 km from the city on Ruta Provincial 82 at kilometer 39, the Cacheuta hot springs sit on the Mendoza river in the Andean foothills, on the old road to the Uspallata pass. The Parque del Agua is a large network of indoor and outdoor pools.

The park opens every day of the year from 10:00 to 18:00. From Easter to 21 September only six indoor and six outdoor pools are open. Press reports gave about 12,000 ARS on weekdays and 13,000 at weekends for adults in 2026, while another source quoted higher prices, so check. A day tour with transfer and entry was quoted at 38 USD on weekdays between April and June 2026.

Finish the trip on the Cerro de la Gloria in Parque General San Martín, where the Monument to the Army of the Andes was inaugurated on 12 February 1914, designed by the Uruguayan sculptor Juan Manuel Ferrari. The hill is about 980 m high and the monument itself rises 16 m. It shows the crossing of the Andes by San Martín's army in 1817.

You can walk up pedestrian paths or take the paved road, which has lookouts and parking. The sun sets around 20:13 in mid-November, around 20:42 at the end of December and around 19:55 in mid-March. Come 30 minutes early and watch the city's lights come on at the foot of the mountains.

For the last dinner, go to Sarmiento 641, a parrilla just off Plaza Independencia. The sign out front says Liniers, which confuses people, but this is the place. It serves grilled meat and also tapas such as prawns, calamari and beef tongue, and the staff know their wine. A 2026 listing gave 35,000 ARS with wine included.

Order the grill, a bottle of Malbec from the valley you liked most, and finish with a coffee. After five days of vineyards and mountains, this is a quiet way to end.