Hello, I am glad to greet you, I am Yael Yancelson and it will be a pleasure to take this tour with you, today we are going to make a trip that I really wanted to do, we are going to enjoy the beautiful city of Buenos Aires Argentina—-So breathe, close your eyes, give me your hand and let yourself be guided, let’s begin.

We start at Caminito, one of the most emblematic and unmissable walks in the City, an open-air museum almost 150 meters long. Its sinuous layout is due to the fact that it follows the bed of a stream that flowed there until the beginning of the 20th century. The area was popularly known as “Puntin” (diminutive of “bridge” in Genoese dialect).

For a long time, it was part of the route of the railway to Ensenada (one hour from Buenos Aires) until, in 1928, the branch was closed and the track became an abandoned alley. It was thanks to the initiative of several neighbors that, in the 1950s, the land was recovered to turn it into a pedestrian promenade and a museum street, in which works by different artists were gradually added. One of the great promoters of the enhancement of the area was the painter Benito Quinquela Martín, in 1959, he asked that it be baptized with the name of the famous tango “Caminito”, composed by Juan de Dios Filiberto and Gabino Coria Peñaloza.

Did you know that the lyrics of the tango “Caminito” were a poem written by Gabino Coria Peñaloza, in 1903, in homage to a trail in the town of Olta, in the province of La Rioja?

How about we enter this beautiful building that is the Museum where the Cabildo of the City of Trinidad and Puerto de Santa María de los Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, worked. In November 1939 it was opened to the public for the first time, but only the rooms on the upper floor were enabled. In 1960, an act of Congress legalized its creation and its national jurisdiction.

The heritage of the Museum is made up of the building itself and the collections made up of documents, paintings and objects from the 17th to the 20th centuries. In the room dedicated to the Cabildo as an institution, the activity that was carried out in the times of the Spanish colony is reflected and you can see, among other objects, the Royal Standard and the Ark of Cash, where the coins collected by the Cabildo were kept. through tax collection. Also, the Militia Regulations of 1801, a document that describes how citizens should form these armed bodies to enter into combat given the need to defend the city.

Let’s walk now to enter the Teatro Colón, which is one of the must-sees in the world of opera and professionals say it is on a par with La Scala in Milan, the Opera Garnier in Paris and the Royal Opera House in London.

From its first performance on May 25, 1908, in which Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aída was presented, the most important directors, singers and dancers in history performed, such as Igor Stravinsky, Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo , Rudolf Nureyev, Julio Bocca, Paloma Herrera and Maximiliano Guerra.

Its construction lasted almost 20 years and according to the great conductors, the Colón is one of the best theaters of its kind because the horseshoe hall generates a perfect distribution of sound and the three floors of boxes, designed with soft materials such as fabrics, wood and carpets achieve excellent acoustics. Look at the materials used on the upper floors, they are different and harder like marble and bronze to perfect the reflection of the waves. Look up and see the dome that was decorated by the Argentine painter Raúl Soldi.

The Casa Rosada is a palace located in front of the Plaza de Mayo that functions as the seat of the National Government. I find this building imposing and its pink color. Before, it was the Fort of Buenos Aires, the residence of Spanish viceroys and later it housed, with some reforms, the authorities of the successive patriotic governments. The current building is the product of the merger of two previous constructions: the presidential headquarters and the Palacio de Correos. Let’s go next door to the Palacio de Correos, which significantly overshadowed the seat of government, for which President Julio Argentino Roca requested in 1882 a project of expansion and repairs that merged both buildings. To unite them, the Italian architect Francisco Tamburini (responsible for the original project of the Teatro Colón) designed a large central arch at the entrance to Balcarce 50, the construction of which was completed around 1890. This marked the end of what remained of the old Fort: only the some walls and one of the embrasures, which can be seen in the current Casa Rosada Museum-look at it here.

Diego, our guide in this city, tells us in an entertaining way that Roque Sáenz Peña was the only president who lived inside the Casa Rosada, between 1910 and 1914. Banquets were given in the White Room in which up to twelve different dishes were served and the menu was always written in French. The crockery was English and French porcelain, as were the silver and glassware. There are still the heirs of the African palm trees that were planted at the end of the last century, when construction was Frenchified and given a touch of exoticism. I like to imagine these scenes, it’s fun, isn’t it?

Now I feel like going for a walk to the Montserrat neighborhood, it is the oldest in the City and we cannot miss the famous Café Tortoni, Diego tells us that an important part of the history of Buenos Aires is present on its marble tables and walls. Aires, since among its most prominent clients were the writers Jorge Luis Borges, Luigi Pirandello, Federico García Lorca and Julio Cortázar, as well as the musicians Arthur Rubinstein and the legendary Carlos Gardel. Wow, there is an intellectual atmosphere, can you capture it? Let’s enjoy a mate that is the most typical infusion of Argentina, the drink has its origin in the Guaraní people, native to the area around what is now southern Brazil and northern Argentina, mate is prepared using the leaves of the yerba mate plant, a bush that is percolated in hot or cold water. Drinking yerba mate is a very important social practice and has a whole mysterious preparation that is served in a container of the same name and can be the traditional one, made of cured gourd, or a pottery or wooden jar. The infusion is taken with a straw or metal straw. And while we taste it, we listen to a rich jazz in this Café Tortoni and we see the tango show.

And speaking of that, let me tell you that tango was born during the 1800s, it is a dance full of sensuality native to the less favored areas of Buenos Aires. These communities were inhabited by a rich diversity of people that included Argentines of African, indigenous, and Caribbean origin. On the other hand, there were also many European immigrants who began to arrive in great waves towards the end of the century. What elegant and passionate movements! Look what a beauty of dance, it seems to me that it shows the exotic cultural mixture of these first tango dancers. The solemn melodies of this music offer the listener a glimpse into the lives of early Argentine immigrants. Tango later spread to the richest areas of Buenos Aires. This type of dance continued to expand and in the early 20th century it became a sensation throughout Europe and the United States. Argentina’s golden age (1930-1950), a period marked by the country’s prosperity, witnessed an explosion of popularity and new styles of Argentine tango. The most important exponents in the history of tango are Carlos Gardel and Julio De Caro. Something characteristic in the different types of tango is that different shapes are drawn on the ground, since they adapt to different places. Couples also hug differently depending on the style. In some styles, the dancers embrace in a V shape, in others in a square shape, some styles ask for a closer embrace and others need an open embrace. No matter what the style, tango always appeals to the senses and creates a bond between the dancers. Lost in harmonic movement and smooth touch, tango dancers from all over the world have fallen in love on the dance floor with their partners, and with the dance itself, tangoing their way into a world of passion that must be experienced. to understand it. Would you like to dance to it? Let’s take a lesson, okay?

And after so much dance class, I already got hungry, didn’t you? if you like to cook, stay here and let’s go to the kitchen together and by clicking on the button you can review the complete recipe or if you prefer, keep traveling.