This section is dedicated to take away all your "I wish someone had told me that before I went!" experiences. This way, you can spend less time settling in, and more time making new friends in your chosen hostel.
Step aside, New York ... THIS is the city that never sleeps! Buenos Aires fairly crackles with electricity as it hums with activity both day and night. It offers an endless array of diversions, and its varied and fascinating neighborhoods mean you’ll never run out of places to wander.
This city of 13 million people - the largest in Argentina - is a complex and fascinating place. Arriving at the immense and chaotic Retiro bus station from calmer destinations may make your head spin, and multiple lanes of traffic whizzing past at high speed will have you approaching intersections with caution. If you’ve just arrived from the laidback tropical ambience of Iguazú, or from the vast empty stretches of Patagonia, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the frenetic pace at first.
However, if you’re like most visitors to the Paris of the South, once you've checked into your Buenos Aires hostel you’ll quickly grow to love this city.
Innumerable museums catering to every interest and passion are scattered throughout the city. There’s usually a soccer or football game being played somewhere (live or on TV) if you’d rather check out the beautiful game and the city’s legendary football fanatics.
You can wander the market in the colonial streets of San Telmo where many Buenos Aires hostels are located, or check out a tango show in the colorful working-class neighborhood of La Boca; further afield, Palermo’s vast open green spaces beckon you to spend a day outdoors, or the upscale glitz of Recoleta may beguile you as you make your way to Evita’s grave in its famous cemetery.
For an easy day trip, you can choose to take a ferry over to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay from your Buenos Aires hostel and enjoy its 16th-century cobblestoned charm, or head out to one of the peaceful suburbs such as Tigre, with its attractive canals and backwaters.
Most Buenos Aires hostels are found in the microcentro, near the Plaza de Mayo, or in neighboring San Telmo. The efficient and cheap Subte, Buenos Aires’ comprehensive subway network, will take you just about anywhere you need to go.
Day Trip to La Plata
Got an extra day or two to spend outside of Buenos Aires City? You should visit a World Heritage Site by UNESCO; La Plato.
With almost a million inhabitants, La Plata is located 56 km southeast of the city of Buenos Aires. It is the 5th most populous urban agglomerate in the country after Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Rosario and Mendoza. It is often dubbed as the “City of the Diagonals”. You can get here by train or bus and get to know this vibrant cultural and student city, the capital of the head province of Argentina.
It can be said to be the first built in the world according to Republican ideas, amid the strengthening of the industrial revolution, the consecration of positivist science and the birth of the utopia of a more harmonious social life and sustainable environmental design. This city is a model of urban planning built in the nineteenth century. And it’s worth to see.
The cathedral of La Plata may be one of the most beautiful I have seen in the country. Inspired by French and German architecture, this neo-gothic masterpiece has in front Plaza Moreno, full of trees benchs and statues. Four, in every corner, represent each season of the year. The white british style city hall completes the city center.
If you continue walking along 51 or 53 Ave. (on any side of the city hall) you will find the Teatro Argentino de La Plata (The Argentine Theater), and the Chamber of Deputies; an amazing building. The city has conserved most of its arquitecture, even though excessive construction has destroyed much of the cities patrimony.
Plaza San Martin, with Pasaje Dardo Rocha, the first city train station in 7th Street (the main city avenue), has the house of government of the province of Buenos Aires in front. If you are willing to walk a few blocks (along 1st Street) you will find a forest full of pines, trees, flowers and green space to eat a picnic or enjoy a glass of wine.
Around this vast area is the Natural History Museum of La Plata, one of the largest in the country with an impressive collection and a magnificent, unmissable building.
“El bosque” (the woods) is home to the local football teams and home of the faculties of University of La Plata, the second most important university in the country, where you can visit an amazing planetary, recently remodeled.
Written by local expertz for Buenos Aires
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