Montevideo, our first port of call…. what a shock it was to see the harbour/dock where our ship was tied up …… so many derelict sunken boats! What not to allow if you want to impress cruise passengers!
We hadn’t booked an excursion and so we just walked through the old port as far as Constitution Square. Most of the stores were closed being that it was Sunday. The whole area could be quite something but it is totally run down. My knee was nasty by the time we got back to the ship.
I decided to check with Wikipedia on the size of that street. Here’s the facts. It doesn’t mention that there is a subway below or that the “medians” are parks between the “7” and “2” lanes. It is unbelievably huge!!!
The avenue has up to seven lanes in each direction and is flanked on either side by parallel streets of two lanes each. Through the centre of the avenue runs one of the city’s Metrobus (Buenos Aires) (Bus rapid transit) corridors, which stretches 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) and was inaugurated in July 2013.[1] There are two wide medians between the side streets and the main road.
After leaving from San José on the 19th, we arrived in Buenos Aires through Lima, Peru, at 6:30 am on the 20th. We had to wait a couple of hours for our fourth, Marilyn, to arrive. Her flight was delayed.
Apparently the city has been around for about 500 years-since 1580. It is a humongous city with the most beautiful magnificent buildings all on tree lined streets. Some of the streets are very narrow but the Avenida de Julio I would say is close to 12 lanes wide. The subway is below the street plus there a couple of bus lanes in the middle plus parks on both sides and 3+3 in either side. I just know it took 3 lights to cross the Avenida …… walking at a good clip. The building so reminded me of Europe. No wonder they refer to the city as the “Paris of South America”.
The Rio de la Plata is widest river mouth in world…. so we were told.
Met Annamaria and Armando from
Chile and North Carolina on Princess cruise. …. at Tango Porteño. He told us definitely “do not drink the water or eat fruits or veggies that haven’t been cook or peeled.
We bought a 2 day hop on hop off bus for which we got to see a lot. A couple we met on a restaurant (they were from Toronto…. on their honeymoon l), told us to go to this fabulous restaurant called La Mar (seafood) in the area called Soho and Hollywood. Well ….. on the2nd day, we took the bus … got off at the Italia Square and then we walked and walked and walked and finally took a taxi but never found it…….but found some interesting murals. What a huge, huge city. We took a taxi back to hotel with an old guy and his little dog…. a white poodle. It obviously was his little buddy. The ride probably took in excess of half an hour but was including a tip…. about $9 CAD. Cheap! It’s definitely a cheaper country than Costa Rica.
Our hotel was a place called La Fresque. It was at the corner of 9 de Mayo and de Julio…. near the Palace of National Congress in the
Monserrat area of BA.
In the middle of Avenida de Julio is a building used for families and children ….social services. It has an outline of Eva Peron on 2 sides. She was like the patron of the disadvantaged and social programs. Peron was elected 3 different times.
Under highway is a monument to the dark times of Argentina’s history….. “dark for dark times”.
Park 1536… belief Mendosa site
La Boca …. first port of BA.
Italians settled in this area…soccer/football is big. So many buildings are royal blue and yellow
Most famous area of plastic artists!
Russian Orthodox Church seems out of place with its blue domes.
Puerto Madero….. newest part of city built on old port… has many beautiful high rises, parks and many fine restaurants. … where “Argentinians like to be innovative”. It shows in the buildings.
Along water there are many sculptures of sport figures… built for 2018 Olympics.
We went for dinner on the 22nd… very disappointed cuz we went to an apparently very famous place. It was less than stellar, the waiter was kind of cranky. We left just as it started to rain. We bought a bottle of wine, took it to the room then holy crap it was like a bomb went off. It was a single strike lightning thunderstorm! OMG it was incredible. The streets were slick with rain. I would have like to have taken a picture but alas… all photo taking devices were dead. Linda got a great one. Maybe she will share.
Below are some sights around the city displaying the beautiful buildings and tree-lined streets
Park in the middle of Avenida de Julio
Restaurant on the Rio de la Plata at the pier.
Pier into Rio de la Plata… can’t see the other side of the river it’s so wide
Lots of these trees with “painted” bark. I don’t know name of them but the leaves are maple leaf shaped. They provided beautifully shaded avenidas!
Garra -rufa ish are kind of fish used in fish spas. They eat your skin… only fish that have no teeth… cool!cost 10,000 colones or $22CAD for 15 minutes.
A funny thing I saw in a shop in Coco. I had found a dress I wanted to try on but there were no clerks visible so I went looking for one. What do I find at the first open door but two young people laying on the cement floor with wet cloths on their foreheads…. on their devices. They barely moved as they told me that the change room was the next door. Obviously I was not the only one having trouble with the heat.
On Sunday the 17th we left our extremely spacious well appointed 3 bedroom condo (60 stairs up and 60 steps down. The grounds of the complex were manicured to the nth degree and every time you drove in, your pass was scanned).
The drive back to San Jose was uneventful but over 4 hours long….. not just down the road! The unfortunate part of returning the car on a Sunday (it was the same when picking it up) is that the main street that the car rental was on (Paseo Colon) was closed for the day …. for 2 months each year so that the kids would have playground. There were trampolines, zip-lines and sack races. Fun for them. Most of the streets in the area are one-ways. We (even the cabbie from the week before) could not find our way back to the rental place. I eventually got out and walked to it and asked them to help us….. just in time. The same fellow that rescued us (he couldn’t speak English but we got it figured out) end up putting our luggage back in the car and driving us to our new home away from home for the next 2 days. Not quite the same level of quality but still very nice…. and it had a pool!
Monday the 18th we walked into the centre of town (past the car rental place) to the Centro Mercado.
Not too exciting! While down there we went into a cathedral. Not spectacular…. and cabbed it “home”
Passion flower vine (pasiflora) in a most spectacular red. I’ve never seen it that colour before.
Roots of the old trees along Paseo Colon… amazing!
One of the many pink buses (along with a whole lot of brilliantly coloured buses…. in front of the cathedral in San Jose
Someone with the handle of “dancers64” seems to like my blog but I am really curious who you might be. Please send me private message and satisfy my curiosity.
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