Walk the Walk in BA – silverfox175

My first view of Buenos Aires from our balcony – not a very attractive site with the heavy rain clouds.

Our arrival meant that we would be alongside from early Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, when the ship would sail with a new ‘cargo’ of passengers.

Our plan was to experience BA on Saturday morning, using a ‘walking guide’ to get an idea of the layout of the city.

We booked our walking tour via the internet with http://www.buenostours.com/ and for a small extra price besides picking us up from the ship (which was part of the basic price), they would return us to the ship, which meant that we would not have to experience using a local taxi.

I may be doing BA taxi drivers a disservice, but I had read many negative comments of taxi drivers taking advantage of  cruise passengers.

We would return to the ship and spend part of Saturday afternoon packing, and leave the ship on Sunday morning around 8.30 am, We’d booked transport via another company http://www.transferlubre.com.ar/ to take us all to our hotel.

I can recommend both companies, because they were both efficient and easy to deal with over the internet – and both spoke English.

Our guide was an American, Jack, who had lived in BA for five years – he was very good and answered all our questions and also suggested various places to visit and what to be careful about when out and about.

We met Jack outside Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Rosario Convento de Santo Domingo.

The statue in front is the mausoleum of Manuel Belgrano, who took part in the fight for Independence and he also created the Argentinian flag.

Flag of Argentina.

Not your average BA taxi – something different.

The one thing that Jack told us to do while out and about was to look up and view the tops of the buildings – very good advice.

Many buildings reminded me of Paris & Madrid.

The oldest pharmacy in BA

Inside – it was as if it was yesteryear.

Paintings on the wall and the ceiling

Ceiling painting – first opened in 1835 and still trading.
As well as being the oldest pharmacy in S. America it is also the oldest shop in BA.

The first book shop in Buenos Aires opened here in 1785, but it was originally a pharmacy that sold books, and later was where the first newspaper for BA was produced.
Later in 1830 it was the library for the nearby college. In 1926 the original building was demolished and the current building took its place.

Literary café underground

A copy of a painting of the original book shop in 1830 is shown in the current book shop’s window.

We had a short trip on the metro, which began operating in December 1913, it is standard gauge, and the system was 55 km (34 miles), and was extended a further 7.1 km in the 1980’s.

The station at which we boarded the train was named Peru.

The platform going the other way – everywhere was spotlessly clean and I didn’t see any litter.

Alejo Julio Argentino Roca Paz 1843 – 1914,
the area around this statue is a favourite place for demonstrations . . . 

Now this is what you might call a wide street –

An aerial view of the same street – which is called 9th of July Avenue.
(La Avenida 9 de Julio)

Seven lanes in each direction – parallel streets on either side, which each has two lanes, a total of eighteen lanes and through the centre area (the white centre pieces) are for bus lanes and rapid transit. There are two wide medium strips between the side streets and the main roads. When we crossed at a normal walking pace we were never able to get from one side to the other in one ‘go’, before the pedestrian lights changed. We (as were many others) were always stranded on islands waiting for the next pattern of pedestrian lights. This is not a complaint, because we never felt threatened by the traffic, but I wanted to emphasis just how wide is this avenue.

The avenue was planned in 1888, but it took until 1935 before work began, and it was eventually completed in the 1960s.