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DAY ONE
| You check in at the
Hotel
Panamericano (
1
)
on Avenida 9 de Julio—
said to be the widest boulevard in the
world, with seven lanes in each direction,
plus four more each way on parallel side
streets. From the hotel’s grand lobby, with
its ornately tiled floor and soaring ceilings,
you follow a tuxedoed bellman to your
roomamong the upper suites and studios,
and take in the commanding view of El
Obelisco, amonument built in 1936 to com-
memorate the city’s 400th anniversary.
January is summer in South America,
so you go outside and explore the grid of
streets fanning out from El Obelisco. At
the
Plaza deMayo (
2
)
, the symbolic center
of the city, you get your bearings with a
private tour fromEternautas (named for a
time traveler in an Argentine comic strip),
led by students and professors from the
University of Buenos Aires. The guides
separate Buenos Aires fact frommythol-
ogy (of which there is no shortage) while
recommending the hippest cafés and
dance halls, or
milongos
.
Tour over, it’s time for a late lunch at
Café Tortoni (
3
)
, the oldest coffee shop
in the city, having opened in 1858. The
Tortoni is situated on Avenida de Mayo,
which locals, known as
porteños
, call the
“Spanish Avenue” for its architecture.
The café is decidedly French, however,
with dark wood, stained glass, historical
photos, small tables and neighborhood
intellectuals holding court beneath
ornate high ceilings. “The tourist who
arrives in Buenos Aires has the entire
city in the Tortoni,” Argentine author José
Gobello has said.
An a er-lunch stroll down Avenida 9
de Julio brings you to the
Teatro Colón (
4
)
.
So extraordinary is this building that it’s
harder to get tickets for the one-hour
tours than for a performance; booking
aheadwas smart. Past the gorgeous lobby
and anterooms, the U-shaped auditorium
is itself a breathtaking symphony of vel-
vet and gold leaf. In addition to operas
from April through December, there are
concerts almost every Thursday and
low-price standing-room spots high in
the balconies, where the acoustics are pur-
portedly the best. Sometimes there’s a free
chamber concert scheduled in the gilded
patrons’ room, which the local aristocracy
modeled on the Palace of Versailles.
Showing up for dinner any earlier
than 9 p.m. is déclassé in Argentina, so
you have plenty of time to amble along
PREVIOUS SPREAD, YADID LEVY
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