Buenos Aires: Recoleta

What trip would be complete without a trip to the local cemetery?  Wait, what?  Actually in Buneos Aires that might actually be true.

El Cementerio de la Recoleta is the final resting place of Eva Perón, although to find the tomb you’ll have to look for her family name, Duarte.  Despite the fact that the cemetery is a huge labyrinth, it shouldn’t be too hard to find Evita—there’s always a crowd of tourists around her tomb to keep her company.

  

The cemetery itself is quite beautiful, and while it might initially seem rather macabre to spend an afternoon wandering around tombstones and mausoleums, we really had a wonderful time strolling around. You can’t help but feel reflective in this setting. Perhaps also somewhat inspired—Greg took literally hundreds of pictures here. (Here are a few, but you can see a few more on his Flickr page.)

And here are a few of mine:

 

Outside the cemetery, Recoleta is a pretty swanky neighborhood.  This is one of BA’s most affluent areas, if not the most affluent.  There are a lot of embassies in the area, along with posh apartment buildings, mansions, and hotels as well.  The architecture clearly takes its inspiration from Europe.  Actually, if you were just dropped in the middle of this part of town, you might think you were somewhere in France. (In fact Wikipedia says most of the architects that designed the buildings here were French.)

This is also a big area for shopping and bar hopping.  As you probably already know, I’m not a big shopper, so I’m not going to be much help in this area. However, I did find that Lucky Magazine has got this covered with a shopping city guide, so if that’s your thing, check this out.

Bars, however, we know I have no problems with and there are some good ones here.  Some of those fancy mansions have been converted into stylish bars and clubs, which is kind of cool. Partying it up in one of these old, dignified houses feels just a little wrong in a fun way— like you’re in one of those teen movies where someone holds a huge party while the parents are away. It's fun to be naughty. We hit a couple of spots in the area.  Here is a sketch-pic of Tommy drinking it up at Milion, but for more suggestions, see The Tommy Gaeta Guide to B.A.

Salud!

(Borrowed this pic from Tommy.)

And few more pics from around Recoleta:

For a restaurant rec in the area, see my next post on Microcentro and Retiro.