For four days and four nights, we walk. Most of the time we have no specific destination in mind but simply explore neighborhoods. The most elegant and most unabashedly European: the adjoining neighborhoods of Recoleta and Palermo.
The French-style mansions in Recoleta date from the early 19th century, testimony to the vast wealth that once poured into Buenos Aires from the nearby pampas, or fertile grasslands. The neighborhood is perhaps most famous abroad for being home to the Recoleta Cemetery. The historic, 10-acre cemetery is crowded with about 7,000 grand mausoleums housing Argentina's elite. With the help of a cemetery groundskeeper, we find the gravesite of Eva Peron. Fifty years after her death, she remains a controversial national figure, but she clearly has her long-enduring fans, judging from the flowers they place in the iron filigree of the mausoleum doors.
Perhaps the greatest testament to the fabled wealth and cultural stature of Buenos Aires: Teatro Colon, the world-renowned, 2,500-seat opera house opened in 1908. Its auditorium, in French baroque style, is lauded by opera and symphony buffs for superb acoustics. The walls of the foyer are made with three kinds of European marble; the floors are mosaics of Venetian tiles; overhead is a Parisian-style stained-glass dome.
The great stars of the opera have all sung here: Maria Callas, Enrico Caruso, Luciano Pavarotti. Mikhail Baryshnikov called it "the most beautiful of the theaters I know," and Baryshnikov knows some theaters.
Open for guided tours, the opera house is also home to the city's ballet and opera companies and three orchestras. A good seat for the opera costs about $35, or you can buy a cheap seat for little more than a dollar.
My favorite spot in the city: the riverside promenade in Puerto Madero, an old warehouse district turned into a modern, hip neighborhood. Hovering over the neighborhood like a giant bird about to take flight is a gleaming white footbridge designed by Santiago Calatrava, the highly lauded Spanish architect whose awards include the 2005 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects. Calatrava, whose work was chosen for inclusion in the rebuilding at New York's World Trade Center site, has created a bridge that is a poetic vision of a tall ship, with teak flooring, lights reminiscent of portholes, and soaring beams and cables that are like masts and rigging. In the evening, lights from the bridge shimmer on the river. In the day, natural light bounces off the water and plays along the surface of the bridge.
Life on the Estancia
The Estancia La Porteña, about 90 miles outside Buenos Aires, is a vivid reminder of the great wealth and power once enjoyed by Argentine aristocrats. In the early 20th century, the estancia, or ranch, covered 14,826 acres, or more than 23 square miles.
Today, the ranch occupies about 700 acres. Polo star Manuel Guiraldes, grand-nephew of Argentine writer Ricardo Guiraldes, still trains polo ponies on the estancia, but takes in guests at the colonial-style home on the grounds. It is one of about 1,000 estancias in Argentina that allows guests to experience a taste of the aristocratic life, typically for about $90 per person per night, including meals, alcoholic drinks and horseback riding.
We'll be staying down the road at La Bamba, the first estancia to open its doors to paying guests and one of three just outside the appealing little colonial town of San Antonio de Areco. Totally torn about which of the three we should have chosen, we decide to at least see all three.
Manuel's wife, Queca, meets us outside the stables, where polo ponies are being saddled, and shows us the grounds, including a Parisian-designed garden and stands of sycamore trees, pines and larches. The property is laced with wooded riding trails. Inside, each guest room has a fireplace and is furnished with country antiques. Guests are also welcome to lounge and read in the studio where Guiraldes, who died in 1927, wrote his books about the life of the gauchos (Argentine cowboys), or in the living room where the writer's grand-nephew displays his polo trophies.
I'm filled with envy at the pastoral life lived on a former estate, but Keka tells me somewhat wistfully that life here is very different from that of two generations ago. "They used to live six months in Paris, six months in Argentina," she says. "They sent their children to Switzerland or England to be educated."
We head to our estancia, La Bamba, about 10 miles from La Porteña. We've hired a driver to take us from Buenos Aires, after numerous people warned us against taking on manic traffic in and just outside the city. He turns up a long lane lined with towering sycamore trees, and we enter the life of country ease. Hammocks hang between trees next to a swimming pool on the property's vast lawn. Hundreds of parrots and parakeets flit through the air, which is filled with the smell of beef roasting over an open wood fire.
