9 March, 2021 - IDEAS South America Travel

Puerto Madero: One of the best walking neighborhoods of Buenos Aires

madero tour

Puerto Madero: One of the best walking neighborhoods of Buenos Aires

Puerto Madero has become one of the most fashionable and expensive places to live in the city. It represents the largest wide-scale urban project in the city of Buenos Aires.

It is an ideal location for a relaxing walk, a romantic dinner at one of the many exclusive restaurants, or a tango show at the elegant and avant-garde Faena Hotel. The neighborhood offers beautiful views of the cityscape, particularly at dusk as the city lights start to shimmer.

The modern sophistication that now characterizes this neighborhood contrasts greatly with its origins. In 1880, the city’s government began to build a new port, which was later given the name Puerto Madero in honor of Engineer Eduardo Madero, its designer.

The project turned out to be quite similar to that of the docklands in London, with four closed and connected docks which are places parallel to the river. In 1910, the port was already too small for the needs of the city that had increasingly gained a greater commercial activity. It was then the so-called New Port (Puerto Nuevo) was built north of Puerto Madero.

As years went by, Puerto Madero was abandoned but, in the early 1990s, a renewal project was carried out and the port became one of the trendiest boroughs in Buenos Aires: the old red brick warehouses were transformed into elegant apartments, lofts, exclusive restaurants, offices and recreation areas.

There is a perfect balance between tranquility and proximity to downtown. It is also a very clean and the safest district of BA. Besides being under surveillance constantly by the Coastguards, all the apartments are well-equipped with the latest technology as regards self-protection.

The neighborhood's road network has been entirely rebuilt, especially in the east side. The layout of the east side consists of three wide boulevards running east-west crossed by the east side's main street, Juana Manso Avenue. The layout is completed with parks, some other avenues and minor streets, running both east-west and north-south, and by several pedestrian streets.

For this reason, Puerto Madero has become the preferred address for growing numbers of young professionals and retirees, alike. Increasing property prices have also generated interest in the area as a destination for foreign buyers, particularly those in the market for premium investment properties.

As you stroll through the neighborhood, there are some specific attractions to enjoy and that you should not miss:

MUST DO IN PUERTO MADERO

Puente de la Mujer

Designed by Santiago Calatrava, this spectacular footbridge has a single mast with cables suspending a portion of the bridge which rotates 90 degrees in order to allow water traffic to pass. When it swings to allow watercraft passage the far end comes to a resting point on a stabilizing pylon.

The Puente de la Mujer (Women's Bridge), by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is the newest link between the east and west docks of Puerto Madero.

The Ecological Reserve

With over 200 species of birds, scuttling iguanas as well as joggers and cyclists, it is a multi-purpose green space. Here, you can join many visitors who descend here to run or to enjoy a spot of bird watching in peace.

Over time, sand and sediment began to build up and developed itself into a biodiversity sample of the native Llanura Pampeana ecosystem, the area now boasts a few trees, mostly willows, ceibos and acacias and is home to the city's only wild flamingos, egrets, ducks, parrots and nutrias.

The Nereids Fountain

It is a masterpiece of sculptor Lola Mora, who designed it in the city of Rome in 1902. Its first location was in the downtown area, but due to the scandal caused by the nude figures, it was moved to its current location in 1918.

The material used is Carrara marble. Tritons, Nereids and an Aphrodite – Venus make up a harmonious sculptural work.

The Faena Hotel

It was designed by the prestigious French artist Philippe Starck together with Argentine entrepreneur Alan Faena who named the complex after himself. The Hotel has a great Pool bar and and hip restaurant that is really worth visiting. This is one of the hottest places to have pre-dinner drinks in Buenos Aires. Just have a sip at the luxurious pool bar or the cabaret bar. Mixed, but dead trendy crowd meet every Thursday and Friday evenings.

Ideas South America organizes the best walking tours of Buenos Aires. We work with the best professional local guides and we are proud of the walking tours in neighborhoods such as Puerto Madero, Recoleta, San Telmo, La Boca and Palermo.

Contact us if you want to do a walking tour with an engaging and knowledgeable bilingual guide.

What to see in Puerto Madero in one day

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What to see in Puerto Madero in one day

La Boca is the oldest, most colorful, and most authentic neighborhood in Buenos Aires. La Boca is mostly a working-class neighborhood aTo experience the full fabric-the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Buenos Aires neighborhoods, you must walk them. Puerto Madero is one of the most successful recent waterfront renewal projects in the world and it represents the latest architectural trends in BA.

We recommend a busy day that will take you across different sectors of this neighborhood, covering both classic highlights and contemporary culture zones.

Start your day with a Porteño breakfast (café con leche, croissants “medialunas”, toasts with “dulce de leche” and orange juice). Our favorite place in Puerto Madero is called “I Fresh Market” (1190, Olga Cossenttini street). It is a charming, clean deli that sells coffee, muffins, toasts, fresh fruits, sandwiches, salads, desserts to take out. Then, at around 11 am, you should make your way to the Fortabat Museum.

This Museum sits in a quiet sport in Puerto Madero. A long, low-rise structure, with a curved canopy for a roof that drops down on its dockside façade, this building is leading the port’s cultural renaissance, acting as a precursor to two planned centers designed by Norman Foster. It holds a substantial private art collection of one of Latin America´s richest women, Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat.

From here, we suggest a walk along the docklands and the Costanera Sur Avenue where you will find Las Nereidas Fountain, a masterpiece of sculptor Lola Mora and the Biological Reserve.

Buenos Aires Ecological Reserve is a 3.5 square kilometer tract of low land on the Río de la Plata riverbank located on the east side of the district of Puerto Madero. The entire walk around the reserve will take you more than an hour and that’s without stopping to peer through the reeds and to try and identify birds. The reserve offers several viewpoint stops that allow you a moment to pull out your binoculars and scan over the marshes that navigate through the wetlands.

The air here is cooler and cleaner than in the busy city and the grassy areas for sitting are a great place to settle down for a relaxing view.

After leaving the Ecological Reserve, we suggest a walk through Micaela Bastidas Park, the most exclusive residential area in the city. The works of landscaping in Puerto Madero also include, besides the specific works on parks and squares, others distributed in the boulevards and promenades that confer beauty to these sectors and contribute to add value to the public space as a place for walking by and recreation.

Calatrava´s Footbridge is the most symbolic monument in Puerto Madero. Opened in 2001, the Puente de la Mujer is a 102 meter-long sculptural walkway that spans the harbor and brings pedestrians from the city centre into Puerto Madero and back. The central part of the suspension bridge rotates 90 degrees to allow water traffic to pass underneath. We suggest a riverside dinner at Cabaña las Lilas (516, Alicia Moreau de Justo street). The tables on the terrace are the best and the restaurant’s specialty is the steak, which is the icon of Las Lilas. Steak has multiple forms: rib eye steak, baby beef and steak with or without ribs; all of them large and with the quality guarantee that only cattle raised in the pampas can give. Red meat there is privilege. Our experience is that Lomo and rib eye are the best cuts that you will have in the “parrillas” of the city. After dinner, if you still have energy and if you want to watch one of the best tango shows in Buenos Aires, head for Rojo Tango (445 Martha Salotti street). Located within the Faena Hotel + Universe, it offers the most exclusive tango show in Buenos Aires, featuring an intimate, top-notch tango show.

Contact us for further information and/or if you want to book a private tour of Buenos Aires. We offer different cultural tours which focus on different topics (Architecture, History, Urban Art, Graffiti and Jewish Tours) with the best local guides.

Things to do in La Boca Neighborhood

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Things to do in La Boca Neighborhood

La Boca is the oldest, most colorful, and most authentic neighborhood in Buenos Aires. La Boca is mostly a working-class neighborhood and it is known throughout the world as the home of Boca Juniors, one of South America’s top football clubs.

Mass settlement in La Boca began in 1840, with an influx of immigrants from Genoa, Italy. Coming from a port city, it was natural for the Genoese to settle along the Buenos Aires waterfront. The new arrivals constructed tenements made of scrap metal and painted the shacks with bright leftover paint to liven up the one-time wasteland. The Genoese proudly brought their unique identity to La Boca, and one of their old traditions was to paint the outside of their homes with the leftover paint from the shipyard – as nothing else was available or could be afforded. Here are the main attractions:

La Usina del Arte

Dubbed “the new home of culture” by Mayor Mauricio Macri’s administration, the Usina del Arte, an abandoned red brick electric factory near the Riacheulo, has been scrubbed up and turned over to the arts.

And culture fans have plenty to be excited about: boasting Buenos Aires’ first symphony concert hall, music, art, dance and theatre are just some of the plans on the agenda for the centre, which will also be home to the Buenos Aires’ Philharmonic and National Symphony Orchestras.

The complex is just between Puerto Madero and La Boca district. So it is possible that this space will work as a cultural corridor between the two and it will enhance the neighborhood.

The complex, designed by Juan Chiogna, was built between 1914 and 1916 by Martignone e Hijos and continued to produce electricity until the early-1990s. This was when Carlos Menem’s administration privatised utilities, and after its doors closed, the building was abandoned. From outside, the building is quite spectacular, standing out from its run-down surroundings. From the clock tower where the bell would be rung to call electricity workers in for their shifts, to the Romeo and Juliet-like balconies where orders would be called to workers in the front courtyard, each and every historical detail has been preserved.

Inside the grand, luminous entrance hall, many original parts of the building were also restored, such as the iron-cast staircases that wrap round the side areas of the structure as well as some of the old tiled flooring on the ground floor.

The Usina del Arte is currently not open on a daily basis to the public. However, from now until December, free guided tours are carried out on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, highly recommendable for those who have yet to visit the building. It will also be open for specific performances until the end of the year.

The Usina is open at specific times for concerts, for details check the CityGovernment’s culture website.*

The Museo del Cine, created in 1971, is now located in the building adjacent to the Usina on Caffarena 49. It is open from Monday to Friday 11am-6pm and on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays from 10am-7pm.

El Obrero

Just across from La Usina del Arte, there is an old traditional restaurant where you can eat like a real “porteño”. You shouldn’t look for refined or exotic dishes but for plentiful and simple dishes of the porteño cuisine. This bar opened in 1954, used to feed workers who worked at shipyards and garages near it. Visit El Obrero for an authentic and memorable lunch. It is really worth it. Address: Agustín R. Caffarena 64.

La Boca Soccer Stadium

Visit the Legendary Boca Soccer Stadium and its Museum. Boca Juniors is one of the biggest soccer teams in Argentina and happens to be one of the clubs that the soccer great Diego Maradona played for. Club Atlético Boca Juniors was founded in 1905, and has been known as the club for the working class. Their official nickname is Los Xeneizes (The Geonese after the Geonese Italians that founded the club). Their stadium, La Bombonera, is not so surprisingly located in the La Boca district. It is possible to get tickets to most games and be a part of a truly Argentine experience. Everything is intertwined and indivisible: not only is La Bombonera a part of a neighborhood which witnessed its creation but it also defines its identity. It was on this port suburb that football and Argentina were born. Settled inside the football field building, this museum (with access through a gift shop with a wide variety of blue and yellow souvenirs) opens up through a long corridor where the pictures of all premier division players who have defended the T-shirt since 1931 are on display. This is how worship of the past begins. At the end of the corridor, inside a huge football ball-shaped room, we could live the 360-degree experience of going into the football field and stepping on the lawn of La Bombonera in a unique spectacular audio-visual event.

Fine Arts Museum of La Boca

Visit the Legendary Boca Soccer Stadium and its Museum.

Once a residence and studio of the artist Quinquela Martin, this museum has a collection of early 20th century Argentine artists.Benito Quinquela Martin, an abandoned orphan who was adopted by a Genoese immigrant couple in La Boca, was the man to take action. He had become the most significant painter in Argentina, with his dramatic paintings of the port of La Boca, and achieved worldwide recognition.

But as La Boca was his inspiration, and had provided him with family, friends and shelter after having been orphaned at an early age, he felt he owed the barrio something in return. Quinquela Martín is considered the port painter and one of the country’s most popular painters. His paintings show port activity, vigor and harshness of daily life in La Boca port. He had to work as a child carrying bags of coal and these experiences influenced his artistic vision obras.

The permanent exhibition consists of works of figurative Argentine artists from the late nineteenth century to today. Also includes a collection of figureheads, unique in Latin America, represented by interesting pieces from the late nineteenth century. In the room Sivori, temporary exhibitions of great masters of Argentine art, renowned contemporary artists and emerging artists perform; linking heritage with contemporary production works. The third floor is currently the House – Museum Quinquela where his great works and personal belongings are exhibited. Their stadium, La Bombonera, is not so surprisingly located in the La Boca district. It is possible to get tickets to most games and be a part of a truly Argentine experience. Everything is intertwined and indivisible: not only is La Bombonera a part of a neighborhood which witnessed its creation but it also defines its identity. It was on this port suburb that football and Argentina were born. Settled inside the football field building, this museum (with access through a gift shop with a wide variety of blue and yellow souvenirs) opens up through a long corridor where the pictures of all premier division players who have defended the T-shirt since 1931 are on display. This is how worship of the past begins. At the end of the corridor, inside a huge football ball-shaped room, we could live the 360-degree experience of going into the football field and stepping on the lawn of La Bombonera in a unique spectacular audio-visual event.

Museum of Fine Arts Quinquela:

Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1835/1843. Tuesdays - Fridays; From: 10 am to 18 pm, and Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 11 to 18 hs. Closed on Mondays.

Quinquela Martin, the creator of “caminito” street

In 1959, Quinquela Martin and his artist friends created the street of Caminito, as a means of recreating the way old La Boca used to look – a reminder of where everyone had come from, not just in La Boca, but Buenos Aires, and Argentina, because this barrio and its port had been the gateway for many immigrants into this city and country (up until Puerto Madero & then Puerto Nuevo were built as replacements in the early 1900s), who then went on to make Buenos Aires and Argentina what they are today.

What Quinquela Martin did was to rescue bits and pieces of the original immigrant conventillos that were being torn down and replaced, and used them to create a concentrated conventillo community around this small street, in what is essentially an uninhabited open-air art and history exhibit, and officially the world’s first outdoor pedestrian museum. There are also Tango dancers in the street and you can pose with them and just give them ten to twenty pesos. . Many artists also show off their work on the sides of the main street.

Fundacion Proa

Once you tire of the fútbol at La Bombonera and of the Maradona impersonators at Caminito you can head over to Fundación Proa at Pedro de Mendoza 1929. It’s an excellent modern and contemporary art museum that hosts international art exhibitions and has a gourmet café with river views on the third floor. It’s open from 11am to 8pm, Tuesday to Sunday.

Handcrafts market

If you visit Caminito on weekends, you will also be able to go shopping at the Feria de la Ribera arts and crafts market, which starts at the front of Caminito and goes around in front of the Riachuelo river. Here you will find handmade crochet,scarves and shawls, traditional mate gourds and bombillas (the metal straws used for drinking mate), jewellery and lots of other interesting craft pieces, all at reasonable prices.

And if you work up a hunger after traipsing around Caminito and the feria, we strongly recommend an authentic Italian Pizzeria nearby in La Boca Banchero Pizzeria (Suarez 396 ). The restaurant also happens to have been a favorite of Benito Quinquela Martin, the architect of Caminito, so it is a fitting end to the outing – and delicious too!

Safety in La Boca

As in most places where a popular tourist attraction sits in the middle of an economically disadvantaged neighborhood, La Boca can be dangerous for visitors who stray off the tourist path. We strongly recommend you visit this neighborhood with a local guide who knows the neighborhood and where to go and walk without worries.

Contact us for further information and/or if you want to hire a local professional to tour La Boca neighborhood and/or other districts of Buenos Aires.

Why The Recoleta Cemetery is Worth a Visit

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Why The Recoleta Cemetery is Worth a Visit

As weird as it may sound, the Recoleta Cemetery is a “must see” attraction and one of the most popular places visited by visitors in Buenos Aires. It is centrally located on some of the most expensive real estate in Buenos Aires and is the eternal resting place to some of the most important Argentines; including Eva Perón, Raúl Alfonsín, and several presidents.

Once inside, Argentina history comes to life at the mausoleums of the dead. Over 50 tombs and crypts are explained, including Evita Perón, revealing all of the legends, historical figures and celebrities of Buenos Aires history.

It gives people so much status to own a mausoleum here, that there is a waiting list of families who are dying to buy a crypt in this prestigious cemetery.

Together with Pere Lachaise in Paris and Di Staglieno in Genoa, Italy, this is one of the most astonishing burial grounds in the world. As you enter the Cemetery, you will soon forget where you are and I am sure you will feel you are in an open air museum, where you will not only learn about our history, but also about different architectural styles; and, above all, you will be amazed by the stories and legends hidden behind each monument.

The cemetery’s 14 acres are organized into squares, which are divided by wide, tree-lined avenues flanked by marble mausoleums of different architectural styles. Ba´s most illustrious sons and daughters (presidents, writers, scientists, artists, independence warriors) are all buried here. Among the most venerated tombs, is that of Eva Duarte, otherwise known as Evita Perón.

We never thought we would find ourselves promoting a cemetery as “a must visit” attraction, but the Recoleta Cemetery is a truly amazing place. The excessiveness and grandeur is unlike anything we’ve ever experienced.

Bear in mind that the Recoleta Cemetery is 14 acres large and a labyrinth of concrete, sculptures and amazing architecture. If you want more in-depth explanations behind the mausoleums, it is essential to hire a local guide to help you discover the best the cemetery has to offer.

Right outside the Cemetery you will find fantastic shopping opportunities and cafes with outdoor seating as well as excellent nightlife and five star hotels. You will find some of the best museums in Buenos Aires and you can explore the basilica Nuestra Señora del Pilar one of the oldest churches of the city.

Ideas South America walking tours combine Argentina history and Argentina present within a fascinating 3 hour stroll. On this walking tour in Recoleta you will see not only the cemetery but also the historical neighborhood of Recoleta and the beautiful mansions built by the city’s elite. You will discover countless sculptures and statues depicting the great leaders of history.

If you want to hire the best knowledgeable and engaging bilingual guide, contact us and we will book a private walking tour inside the Cemetery with the best local guide to show you this unique place.