Buenos Aires – exploring the Paris of South America

Hey there!

As you might know if you have been following me for a while I recently went on a trip to Argentina where I spent 3 weeks in the beautiful city of Buenos Aires. This vacation has honestly been one of the best ones I have ever been on. First and foremost did I finally see my younger sister again, which also contributed to me loving that place so much yet there were so many other aspects making this trip so memorable..

Buenos Aires, the city, which is said to be the Paris of the southern hemisphere is one of those places I immediately fell in love with. The city itself is beautiful and it does indeed look a little like Paris in some parts of the city. However there are other neighbourhoods where you feel like you’re wandering through some Italian city and then there are those parts that had been highly influenced by the Brits. There is actually a whole neighbourhood called Barrio Ingles, where you literally feel like you’re in the middle of an English town house quarter. For some reason this was one of the aspects that fascinated me the most about this amazing place.

I didn’t end up doing much touristy stuff. Thiugh we did have a look at la Boca, which was more a less a waste of time. La Boca is famous for its colourful houses but the amount of souvenir shops and people who want to get you into a restaurant just makes it seem really artificial. It literally felt like there weren’t even people actually living there. That was why after about ten minutes we decided to catch the bus back to San Telmo a really pretty and interesting part of the city which kind of reminded me of Lisbon. There was a lot of street art and lots and lots of cute coffee shops.

Great coffee shops are something you’ll literally find a ton of all around the city. Even where we were staying which wasn’t even in the centre we discovered a few great places to have coffee, breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Unfortunately I can’t give you any tips to where to stay since my sister and I were able to stay at a family friend’s house in Florida, Vicente Lòpez a suburb of Buenos Aires.

I highly suggest to check out this area. You probably wouldn’t find that suggestion in any tourist guide as it’ll take you a 30-minute train ride if you catch the train at Retiro. I do think however that it is totally worth it as Vicente Lòpez as well as Florida are just beautiful.

Vicente Lopez is situated right on the boarder of Rio de la Plata and it has got a really nice park a long the river, perfect for a Sunday afternoon walk. There are also quite a few cute shops around and just walking through the different neighbourhoods is beautiful since there are lots of interesting buildlings. If you happen to get tired of wandering around looking at houses and having a stroll through the shops you can also find a big handful of great cafés and restaurants.

So as I am not able to recommend you any places to stay at I decided to at least share my favourite places to have breakfast, lunch, dinner or even just a quick coffee break.

I have got to warn you here though. I unintentionally took my advice of not always bringing a camera while travelling a bit too seriously and I forgot my camera charger at home. So the only photos I took were ones taken with my phone as well as a few polaroids. At first I was rather annoyed at myself for not bringing the stupid charger yet in certain aspects it also made my trip much more enjoyable. I never had to worry about carrying a humongous bag, which would fit my camera nor did I ever have to undergo the struggle of taking my camera out of the bag and then putting it back in straight after while being attentive enough so no one would dare to grab anything out of my pocket …

It ended up being much more convenient to just carry a small cross body bag with my little Fujifilm polaroid camera . I was obviously also carrying my phone and my wallet yet I usually just had those in the pockets of my jacket since they have a zipper. Anways to put it straight as I didn’t have my camera I’ve obviously only got IPhone quality photos for you. So I’ll include those just to give you a few impressions yet don’t expect too much.

So let’s get started with my favourite discoveries in Buenos Aires.

I’ll start with the ones closest to where we were staying:

La Apasionada: Such a cute coffee shop with amazing food. This place is perfect if you enjoy a large breakfast with freshly baked bread, great coffee, fruit, homemade smoothies (or licuados as the Argetinian would say) and all sorts of other yummy stuff. They’ve also got a great lunch and dinner menu with things such as hummus and babaganoush platters, wraps, sandwiches and pasta. Additionally do they offer a variety of homemade cookies, cakes and other treats during the afternoon.

I went there for breakfast, for lunch as well as for afternoon tea and the service, the food as well as the atmosphere was great each and every time.

La Apasionada

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Florida, Buenos Aires

Ballesteros: Best place for a delicious and creative dinner! The food looks and tastes heavenly but the actual highlight of this place was honestly the homemade bread they served prior to our meals. We literally got to try about five different types of delicious bread, which was always still warm as it had just been prepared in their own little bakery. We got the pleasure of trying olive bread, tomato bread, baguette and much more. With the amazing bread they always served this yummy eggplant dip of which the lovely waitress kindly stole the recipe for us. Not only does the food taste delightful the restaurant itself is just worth a visit. The building was originally a traditional supermarket and it has still got its initial tiles from the early days. They then furnished it with all different kinds of tables and chairs, which makes it look adorable and super cosy. Ballesteros is one of those places you can sit for hours and hours it has just got that kind of vibe to it.

Ballesteros

Brasserie

Avenida general San Martin 2799

Florida, Buenos Aires

Those were the two places closest to where we lived and the two we visited the most. They’re definitely worth a visit and I personally find the fact that they’re in the suburbs even more appealing as there are seriously no other tourists around. People actually always seemed rather confused about the language my sister and I were speaking…

The next place I want to share with you was also located in Vicente Lòpez yet this time in the Barrio, which was also called Vicente Lòpez, kind of confusing right?

Alguito: The perfect café after a stroll along Rio de la Plata and a wander through some of the cute shops Vicente Lòpez has got to offer. This place is located a 5 minute walk from the station of Vicente Lòpez which can easily be reached by train from Retiro. Green juices, hummus sandwiches, lentil burgers and vegan cookies, the perfect place for any lover of the vegan and vegetarian cuisine. Yet it also offers a wide range of non-vegan dishes so it is literally a place for everybody. On top of the great selection of food it is also a pleaser to the eyes. The building as well as the inside of the café are painted in a lovely tiffany blue and there are little accessories reminding of the beach all around the place. The vibe in the rather small spot resembles one of an Aussie Beach Café, just wonderful! I went there three times in three weeks, so it’s got to be good.

Alguito

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Vicente Lòpez Buenos Aires

There is one more café I want to share with you which is located right in the centre of the city near Calle Florida and the Casa Rosada.

Vita café: This café or rather restaurant only serves vegan food. They also sell a wide variety of vegan products such as soy yoghurt, soy dulce de leche as well as teas and juices. As for the food they offer beautiful salads, wraps and sandwiches but also Argentinian classics turned vegan. I personally really liked that they are trying to incorporate some traditional dishes such as Milanesa (usually a fried schnitzel) into their menu as it can be hard to try traditional food in Argentina when you are not eating meat. Even though they offered those traditional dishes I went for a salad as it was quite warm that day and I was craving something on the lighter side. My salad was greens with roasted veggies, tomatoes, marinated tofu and a hummus dressing. I also had a carrot orange juice to go with it and everything tasted just divine. The other big plus about this place as well as all the other cafés I just mentioned is that they are incredibly affordable at least for European standards. I didn’t pay more than 12 Francs for the juice and the salad, let me tell you in Switzerland you’d pay around double or more…

Vita Café

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Buenos Aires

So those are my favourite discoveries from my stay but I honestly went to at least five more which were absolutely great as well. So if you like some good food and those kind of trendy coffee shops you’ll definitely be well catered for in Buenos Aires.

I personally just loved wandering around the city while looking at all the different kinds of buildings and types of architecture. Which is what I recommend you to do as well. I also suggest you to head over to MALBA a museum for modern art, which I really loved. Apparently the guided tours at the congress are also worth a visit yet I didn’t get around to doing one.

To finish off this post I want to share four more tips to make the best of your stay in Buenos Aires.

1. Get a Sube card for public transport and charge it with about 100 pesos. They’re valid on all busses and trains and it is much cheaper than paying individually every single time you get on a bus or train.
2. If you want to use a taxi use remise, at least that is what I was told to do and I was staying with locals.
3. If you’re going to be short on time don’t visit la Boca as well as Calle Florida, it’s a waste of time.
4. Don’t go there with the intention of buying clothes, they’re most likely going to be more expensive than in your home country.

So that’s it. In case you have got any additional questions about my stay or tips in general don’t hesitate to askJ

Bisous