Buenos Aires, Argentina Day 3

Today we left the Marriott and moved over to the Hilton which is the hotel that Viking uses for the guests to have one night before flying to Ushuaia.
We had another all day tour with a local guide living here in Buenos Aires, but is originally from Canada. Our first stop was the La Recoleta Cemetery. It is a very historic cemetery where you buy a family plot and build your own mausoleum over it. You can also dig down and put in underground vaults for the coffins. There were many, many structures from the historic families of Argentina. Evita is buried here. We walked quite a while through the tombs.
Next we visited Recoleta, which has many of the city luxury palaces and high end shopping. The architecture was impressive and old French style.
We took the underground subway to the Plaza General San Martin which has even more architecturally impressive buildings. The Kavanaugh Building is here and was built just to block the view of the Catholic Church in this part of the city. It was the city's first skyscraper.
Next was the Obelisk and looks like the Washington Monument and celebrates the 9th of July, which is the day celebrated for their independence. The Obelisk is in an area that is similar to the Buenos Aires Times Square. On the side of one building is a huge neon sign celebrating Evita. Our next stop was the Pink House, which is the equivalent of the US White House, just that their President does not live there. Evita hade her famous speech from the Pink House balcony.
Then we walked to San Telmo, which is a district know for it's wealthiest families and artists that took over parts of the district to renovate it and bring in antique shops, tango, cafes, bars, etc. We visited a ship that specializes in de leche, wine, chocolate and liqueurs. We tasked just about everything and ended up buying some cream limoncello and chocolates.
Our last stop was La Boca, a colorful area that is knows for the invention of Tango. It's full of art and we stopped by the local soccer stadium what seats 40,000 fans. They are extremely passionate about their local soccer team - the Boca Juniors. Scott purchased a Boca hat and Maradona Boca jersey. Scott was happy that people were commenting on his new team hat. Also walked through a market and found a cute little penguin figurine made of Rhodochrosite, a local mineral. It is the national stone of Argentina. Then back to the hotel after a wonderful day of sightseeing, history, art, architecture and great street food. They we found that there was an issue at our hotel and the prior ship of guests had not checked out, so all the Viking cruise people were still waiting in the lobby and a conference room as they arrived during the day - the rooms were not available yet... We left to walk to a local brew pub to get empanadas and beer. Luckily when we got back, we checked again and since we were the first few to check in for the cruise at about 8:30 in the morning, we had a room! We quietly left to claim our luggage and then take a shower and relax.
What a day!!!Lue lisää