My Guided Walking Tours of Buenos Aires are Back!

Some eagle-eyed readers may have noticed from my About Me and Buenos Aires Tours pages that in the past few days I have begun to offer paid guided tours of Buenos Aires again.

This wasn’t exactly planned, but I’m very happy about it, because tour guiding is probably the most enjoyable job I’ve ever had (for those of you not familiar with my past, I was a tour guide here in Buenos Aires for about a year, up until this time last year).

As I say, it’s all started up again a little by chance. I recently put up a suggested walking tour of Buenos Aires City Center on this blog, which is intended to be used by anyone that wants to as a free self-guided tour of this great city.

Literally the day after I posted, some brothers from the US on holiday in Argentina emailed out of the blue, asking me to give them the tour I posted on a private guided basis. I had some time free, so I thought ‘why not’?

After some lightning quick revision and a practice tour with my friends (it’s amazing how fast the names, dates, anecdotes and jokes came flooding back), I gave the tour, mainly to see how I would feel returning to this line of business. Not only did I enjoy it immensely, but the brothers also loved the tour… so much so that they persuaded me to give them an off-the-cuff tour of San Telmo and La Boca a couple of days later. They were so nice and enthusiastic about my tour guiding, that it gave me a feel good factor and the urge to return to guiding tours around Buenos Aires.

Book a Private Walking Tour of Buenos Aires

And so, here I am, looking for people who would like to take a walking tour in BA. I like to think of myself as both a mainstream blog writer and tour guide - I’m not offering ‘the other side of Buenos Aires’ or concentrating heavily on specialist areas such as history, architecture or tango, but instead trying to give an overview of many of the major sightseeing attractions in an enjoyable, informative manner, while pointing out interesting little details and stories that you may otherwise have missed. So…

If you like the way I write in this blog, and are planning a trip to Buenos Aires, then please consider booking a private walking tour of Buenos Aires City Center with me.

For more details and a booking form, please go here:

BOOK MY BUENOS AIRES WALKING TOURS

At the moment I am only offering the city center tour, which is an excellent introduction to the key sights and history of Buenos Aires, but fairly soon I will be offering other walking tours of barrios such as San Telmo, Recoleta, and La Boca. So keep checking back, and please wish me luck with my return to the exciting world of tour guiding!

Av. de Mayo 1370 (between San Jose & Santiago del Estero), City Center

As I have almost certainly mentioned before, the Palacio Barolo is one of my favorite buildings in Buenos Aires. It is a simply magnificent mish-mash of architectural styles, held together by some amazing numeric symbolism that acts as a tribute to Dante Alighieri, and his epic poem “The Divine Comedy”. I will write a full post about the building and the fascinating stories behind it very soon, when I get the chance to take some more pictures that will fully do it justice.

For now however, this post is a review of the cafe that recently opened on its ground floor, Cafe Palacio Barolo, which is pretty darn good on its own merits, and also acts as an additional excellent excuse to spend some time inside this fantastic building. This is also my first post on the theme of Buenos Aires Cafes, and believe me it will be the first of many, because Buenos Aires is a city full of places to get your caffeine fix, and cafe culture also plays an important part in everyday life here.

[The Palacio Barolo building and cafe are featured on my suggested walking tour of Buenos Aires City Center, which can also by booked as a private walking tour of Buenos Aires, personally guided by me]

Read the rest of this entry »

Buenos Aires City History Tour: Plaza de Mayo, Avenida de Mayo, Plaza Congreso

As I am currently offering private guided walking tours around Buenos Aires, I decided to try and come up with some innovative ideas to promote my services. All the feedback I get is that I am a very good tour guide, which is all well and good, but no use if not many people find out about my tours!

The first idea that came to mind was to post up here some edited-down versions of the walking tours I offer, along with some pictures, directions and maps, to firstly prove that I know what I am talking about, and secondly to give you a brief idea of what my tours cover. If you want to book a guided walking tour like the one shown below, please go here: Buenos Aires Tours OR If you want to book another one of our tours or trips, go here: Buenos Aires Private Tours for more information.

There is also the added benefit that anybody thinking about doing some DIY walking tours during their visit to Buenos Aires can print and use my suggested routes, completely free!

The first tour route is what I call the ‘Buenos Aires City History Tour‘ - covering the historical heart of the city and many of it’s most important buildings, in addition to a lot of fantastic architecture, and some great cafes. It starts in Plaza de Mayo, home to the executive arm of the Argentine government (the Casa Rosada), ends in Plaza Congreso outside the legislative arm (the Congress building) and walks down Avenida de Mayo in between, the ‘grand boulevard’ of Buenos Aires that connects these two most important of Buenos Aires structures.

So, if this sounds like the kind of tour you’ll be looking for during your visit to Buenos Aires, then either print out this blog post to do a self-guided walking tour, or contact me to book this as a private guided walking tour - something that I can assure you will be far more enjoyable and hassle-free than struggling round the busy city center with an upside down map clasped in your hands!
Read the rest of this entry »

[12th - 25th March 2007]

Sorry for missing a week folks. Without wanting to go into the details, it’s been a crazy and stressful time. Anyway, on with the show we go, with my picks from the Buenos Aires blogosphere from the last two weeks, and I’m going to to try and keep my usually meandering descriptions quite brief this time round…

My favorite Buenos Aires blog posts from the past 2 weeks

• Tango Cherie made an interesting post on the subject of tango ‘taxi dancers’
• Nathan from Trip Trap notices some funny goings on in the Buenos Aires section of Craigslist
• Robert’s map of Recoleta Cemetery is ready, and it looks beautiful
  

Read the rest of this entry »

[5th - 11th March 2007]

For your information, I’m writing this week’s Buenos Aires blog roundup slowly in between itching the many mosquito bites that have ravaged my poor body. Unfortunately we have a bit of a mosquito invasion here in the city of Buenos Aires at the moment, although at least it looks (correct me if I’m wrong) like there is no risk of Dengue here in the city (unlike in parts of Buenos Aires province, and further north in Misiones). Still, the bites don’t half itch a lot, so apologies if my itching-triggered lack of concentration causes any errors in this roundup…

Buenos Aires Blog Posts of the Week

• This week’s top posts are about three new things that I’m pretty certain I will love. First up, Robert points out that a cafe has just opened up on the ground floor of the Palacio Barolo, a building that fascinates pretty much everyone, including Robert and I. It looks beautiful in Robert’s pictures, and despite the hefty, touristy prices (9 pesos for a cafe con leche with 3 medialunas!!!), I will definitely be checking it out in the near future
• Secondly, Dan from Saltshaker has been privy to a sneak preview of the food at an authentic Indian restaurant that will apparently be opening in Barrio Norte (Laprida and Charcas) later this month. It will be called Tandoor, and hopefully will provide the quality Indian food many of us expats have been missing since arriving in Buenos Aires
• Thirdly, Disco Shawn (still my vote for top blogger pseudonym of the year), introduces us to the Chilean indie musician Javiera Mena, who will be playing in Buenos Aires this Friday, March 16th at Club Niceto in Palermo Hollywood, during their indie music night Compass. From the tracks linked to in that blog post, her stuff sounds pretty good (I like my “cute, keyboard-driven pop goodness”, as Shawn describes it), so I will probably try to make my way to Compass this Friday

Read the rest of this entry »