Buenos Aires - cool places to go

Buenos Aires shouldn’t be visited, but "breathed" with calm and ease, as the name of the city suggests (it literally means "good air"). A nice day out can start at Caffè Tortoni, in Avenida de Mayo 825-29. It is a national monument, with coffee tables in marble and oak; amongst its customers there have been people like Garcìa Lorca, Pirandello, Borges. The spirit of those glorious times can still be seen from the ageing relics on the walls. In the cellar you can find the Peña del Torton, which is a meeting point for writers, poets, musicians playing tango or jazz.

Refreshed by the great coffee served at Caffè Tortoni you can visit Plaza e Mayo, with the kitsch Casa Rosada, which is the seat of the President of the Republic. Stop under the pyramid, which is the symbol of the independence of the country, and try to imagine the great workers’ demonstration that was organized in 1945 by Evita Peròn, or the masses first approving then criticizing the decision to start a war to conquer the Malvinas islands (the Falkland war). You will also feel the tears of the Mothers of the Disappeared, the victims of the military regime, which used to meet every Thursday to remind the world that they had no other place but this square where to weep for their dear ones.

The next stop is San Telmo, the oldest district of the city. It used to be a seedy neighbourhood, where the flash of the knives of drunken people fighting was as common as people dancing tango in the clubs. On Sundays, there’s an antiques market where tango is often played, and you can find improvised couples dancing cheek to cheek, with a serious expression which is peculiar to the music defined by the poet Armando Discépolo as "a sad thought expressed in dance". All of the area is full of antiques shops and patios full of flowers, where you can browse amongst a mixture of precious object and attic rubble. It is like Aladdin’s lamp: you just need to work the shop owner a little and marvellous things suddenly appear.

If you head south you get to the Boca, a district built by mariners coming from Genoa, Italy, which is still mostly inhabited by porteños (the Spanish name for the inhabitants of Buenos Aires) of Italian origin. Don’t settle for the Caminito, which is the standard tourist trap in this area full of colourful houses made of wood and tin. The best colours can be found along the Riachuelo channel. There are two abandoned iron bridges which are imposing in size; the channel itself is full of old boats, old warehouses, factory chimneys and tanneries, which are a hint of the lives of hard work and poverty led by the people of the district.

The opposite feeling can be felt at the Recoleta, which is the district of Buenos Aires full of elegant streets and luxury libraries. Prices are generally very high, so the best idea to avoid spending all of your money is to sit down at an open air bar, under a giant ombù, which is a bush the size of an ancient oak. The phantoms of the past will still be in the air around you: beside the Iglesia del Pilar, close to the department stores, there’s the monumental cemetery, where rests, together with other illustrious guests, non less than Eva Duarte Peròn. If by now you have fallen in love with the city, be careful not to incur in the wrath of the great Argentinian writer Jorge Lùis Borges, who in Férvor de Buenos Aires wrote: "I am jealous of this city and I don’t like other people to love it... I don’t know if it is love or an illness, but it is a passion that I don’t want to pass on to any other".