Buenos Aires & the Pampas

The city is broken down into districts called barrios, each closely reflecting the immigrant groups that arrived in the country towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Palermo is a fashionable area, popular for its parks. The original architects did a fantastic job of creating sociable plazas and gardens, bringing the calm of open space to the bustle of the city. Today, some of the city's top restaurants and hotels have given the area a stylish edge.

Recoleta is a refined quarter of wide avenues and elegant classical architecture. The best restaurants, antique shops and boutiques to visit while on holiday are found in this area, as well as some of the most important museums and cultural centres. Entirely different but equally unmissable is La Boca; home to Maradona's one time team the Juniors and filled with colourful bohemian houses, street stalls, and live tango music and dance demonstrations spilling out onto the streets.

The iconic gaucho of Argentina can be found all over the country's vast rural prairies and rugged landscapes. In the pampas outside Buenos Aires, these gifted horsemen and the estancias (ranches) from which they still operate offer unforgettable insights into the Argentine countryside.

Two hours' drive from Buenos Aires into the pampas is the traditional farming town of San Antonio de Areco. A town absorbed in the gaucho tradition, it offers an insight into the country life of the pampa from the old days.