el centro

[original post June 11, 2007]

When sight-seeing this time, I started at the downtown plaza, Plaza de Mayo, and worked my way up the main Avenue, Avenida de Mayo, to see some sights in the main downtown area.

In the Plaza de Mayo, I faced a big pink governmental house, the Casa Rosada. I read that it got its pink color from ox blood, used as a colorant and fixative...pleasant. The plaza also has an obelisc/pyramid (Piramide de Mayo) thingie commemorating the one year anniversary of the May 25 revolution for Argentina's independence. The square itself is very historically significant. Painted on the tiles around the piramide are white headscarves, meant to be like the ones the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo wore. The madres were mothers of dissidents captured and tortured by the past dictatorship who stood in the plazy in silent protest.

On one side of the plaza was a cathedral, but I wouldn't have known it was a cathedral except for my tour book. It is an almost neoclassical-looking building, with 12 columns commemorating the 12 disciples. Above the columns was a bas-relief of Joseph and his family. Another building that stook out, in contrast to the very art noveau French influence of most of Argentina's buildings, was the Cabildo--the only colonial era building left in the area.

Behind the Casa Rosada, I found an enormous Argentine flag as well as a statue of Christopher Colombus staring back toward the Old World.

I tried to walk toward an area of town known as La City, which is their financial district and a historically English barrio, but it was a workday, and I couldn't compete with the mass of humanity on the streets. There's an Anglican Cathedral as well as the house of Bartolome Mitre (who founded the nation's La Nacion newspaper) that I want to come back and see on another weekend.

So, escaping the throngs of businessmen and towering banks, I walked up the main Avenida de Mayo. I passed by the La Prensa building, which houses another one of Argentina's newpapers. I stopped and had a turkey sandwich and a Pepsi in the famous Cafe Tortoni...an elegant cafe that is famous for the intellegencia that often grace it. I want to return to the cafe during the evening because they have a tango show then. Next door was the Museo de Tango, which had a lot of interesting artifacts and bits of history about the nation's famous dance. My favorite thing was a felt fedora of Carlos Gardel's. I also liked the costumes they had on display.

Then, I braved the 16 lane highway Avenida 9 de Julio, courtesy of a giant crosswalk. At one end of this street was a crazy-looking stature of Don Quixote bursting out of a white stone. I walked up the Avenida de Mayo some more to catch a glimpse of a cafe named 36 Billares, which introduced billiards to Buenos Aires. A little ways up, across the street, was the towering Edificio Barolo. I thought this building was pretty neat because it is supposed to be representative of Dante's Divine Comedy. The 3 sections of the building represent the three parts (heaven, hell, purgatory), it's 100 meter height is representative of the 100 songs in the comedy, and its 22 floors are the 22 stanzas. The point of the building is supposed to line up with the Southern Cross constellation in June (this constellation is supposed to be associated with the gateway to heaven).

Soon, the avenue widened into another plaza, the Plaza del Congreso. Here, I saw the gigantic congress building. I also passed by Teatro Liceo, one of the city's oldest theaters.

At this point, my feet were tired, so I wandered the pedestrian street Florida on my way back to the train.

Sorry for the tour-book sounding entry--it's just that the city's history really fascinates me. If you prefer my cultural exploits, I'll promise to sprinkle in both sight-seeing and cultural insights. Until then!