Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of the city and thus the location of several city
landmarks, such as the Obelisco, the 9 de Julio
Fountains, and the Teatro Colón at the Lavalle
intersection.
A huge elegant building, the
Teatro Colón
takes up nearly the whole block at Cerrito and
Tucumán. The main entrance is at the Plaza
Lavalle, a lovely tree-filled park full of statues
of dancers commemorating the members of an
Argentine ballet troupe who perished in a plane
crash in the 1960s. The Colón is one of the
world's premiere opera houses and draws inter-
national artists. It is home to its own opera and
ballet companies as well as a symphony orches-
tra. Tours of the theater are offered year-round.
A few blocks away at the
Plaza de La
República
(at Corrientes) stands the city's
most visible landmark, the
Obelisk
. Two hun-
dred twenty feet high, it was constructed in
1936 to mark the 400th anniversary of the city's
founding. Two lovely fountains here are illumi-
nated at night and are visible for blocks.
A beautiful
sight.
Calle Florida/Plaza San Martín
Calle Florida, a pedestrian walkway, stretches
for 11 blocks from Rivadavia to the Plaza San
Martín. It was for many years the city's pre-
miere shopping street and for sheer quantity
and variety it still is. The quality of the goods
sold has fallen off a bit because many of the
shops formerly on the street have relocated to
shopping malls. Still there are over 500 shops
along Florida, many of them tucked away in
Numbers rise on
Florida from
Rivadavia to the
Plaza San
Martín.
