Argentina - The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget - page 54

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focuses mainly on Argentine art from the
1920s until the present day, and includes
pieces by Xul Solar and Antonio Berni.

Next door are the white walls of the
Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar
(Mon-Sat 10.30am-6.15pm, Sun
2.30-6.15pm; free; T 011 4803 6793).
The eighteenth-century Jesuit building
has been beautifully restored, and is
much in demand for fashionable
weddings: inside, the magnificent
Baroque silver altarpiece, embellished
with an Inca sun and other pre-Hispanic
details, was made by craftsmen from the
north of Argentina. Adjacent, the Centro
Cultural de Recoleta (Tues-Fri 2-9pm,
Sat & Sun noon-9pm; free; T 011 4803
1040, W centroculturalrecoleta.org), at
Junín 1930, is a fabulous art space with
interesting temporary exhibitions.
If by now you're in need of a coffee
or a shopping fix, head to Buenos Aires
Design , a shopping centre focusing on
chic design products and homeware,
which adjoins the cultural centre. The
large terrace upstairs overlooks a park, and
is a great place for an afternoon drink.
Visible from the terrace of Buenos Aires
Design, the Museo Nacional de Bellas
Artes (Tues-Fri 12.30-8.30pm, Sat &
Sun 9.30am-8.30pm; free; T 011 4803
0802, W mnba.org.ar) is at Avenida del
Libertador 1473. Within the imposing,
columned building is a traditional art
gallery, primarily displaying European
paintings but also with a small but
valuable collection of colonial and
modern Argentine work. For more local
artworks, go to the Museo Xul Solar
(Tues-Fri noon-8pm, Sat noon-7pm;
AR$15; T 011 4824 3302, W xulsolar.org
.ar), further to the southwest at Laprida
1212, near the corner of Calle Mansilla,
which focuses on the bright and colourful
Cubist paintings of twentieth-century
Argentine artist Alejandro Xul Solar.

La Boca
Easily accessible from Parque Lezama,
the suburb of La Boca is known for
the Caminito and as home to one of
Argentina's leading football clubs,
Boca Juniors , arch-rivals of the River
Plate team on the other side of town.
he Caminito is a small area of brightly
coloured buildings along the river, created
in the 1950s by the neighbourhood's most
famous artist, Benito Quinquela Martín .
These days the Caminito is a serious tourist
trap, though it has an interesting open-air
arts and crafts fair (daily 10.30am-6pm),
street performers, and restaurants and cafés
charging tourist prices.
A visit to the Boca Juniors' stadium,
La Bombonera (Brandsen 805, three blocks
west of Av Almirante Brown; T 011 4362
2050), is definitely worthwhile, even if you
can't score tickets to a game. The starting
point is the fascinating Museo de la Pasión
Boquense (daily 10am-6pm; AR$40;
T 011 4362 1100, W museoboquense.com),
a must for football fans; guided tours of the
stadium start from here (daily 11am-5pm
hourly; AR$15 extra).
La Boca can be reached by bus #29
from Corrientes or Plaza de Mayo,
#86 from Plaza de Mayo or #53 from
Constitución. Note that La Boca has
a bad reputation for robberies , so leave
your valuables at home and do not stray
from the touristy area around Caminito.

Recoleta
Immediately north of the city centre,
the wide streets of upper-class Recoleta
are most famously home to the Recoleta
Cemetery at Avenida Quintana and Junín
(daily 7am-5pm; free), surrounded by
café-lined streets and their designer-clad
denizens. Immensely popular, it is the
resting place of some of Argentina's
leading celebrities, including Evita
herself, buried under her maiden name
of Duarte. A map is available at the
entrance to guide you around the great
monuments of dark granite, white marble
and gleaming bronze.

Palermo
Expansive, middle-class Palermo stretches
around Avenida del Libertador as it
heads north from Recoleta, taking in
the high-rise apartments near the north
of Avenida Santa Fe, the chic cafés and
hotels of Palermo Viejo, and the leafy
streets and late-night bars of Palermo
Hollywood. On or near tree-lined
Libertador are three unmissable