Humberto 1º 340 (between Defensa & Balcarce), San Telmo

[Open Monday - Saturday, 8:30am to Midday and 4pm to 7pm. Sundays, 1pm to 6pm.]

I like churches.

Born and raised a good Catholic boy, I was.

…but that has nothing to do with why I like churches. I’m an agnostic, and instead like them because God generally gets some of the best architecture around. And in Buenos Aires it’s no different. So, this is the start of an attempted series on churches in BA, which may well be spread out over several years, cunningly hiding it’s series-ness from view.

The San Pedro Gonzalez Telmo church (try saying that after a few pints), is also known as the Nuestra Señora de Belén (Our Lady of Belen) church. A good church can never have too many names in my book.

A Little Church History

Some Jesuits named Blanqui, Bautista, Primoli and Schmidt designed the original and kicked off the building in 1734. That makes it one of the oldest churches in the city. But not the oldest, which I’ll cover at some point soon I guess. The church’s architecture was then added to and restored a fair few times up to the present, which accounts for it’s lovely eclectic style. Apparently it is ‘neo-colonial’. I prefer to call it ‘fancy iced wedding cake’:

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[8th - 21st January 2007]

Hello Buenos Aires blog fans. I still don’t have internet access in my new apartment, and probably won’t for a while, which explains my lack of posting at the moment. Hence, I missed last week’s blog roundup, and am combining it with this week’s instead.

So, here goes two weeks worth of Buenos Aires bloggy goodness…

Things To See & Do in Buenos Aires

• Robert drove south to show us some photos of the ‘real’ city of Buenos Aires, with photos and comments about the lesser-visited (by tourists) barrios of Barracas, Parque Patricios, Nueva Pompeya, and Villa Soldati
• Loads of great photos,as usual, from Karine recently in her Buenos Aires Weekly and Daily photo blogs, including ones of some coffins in a worse for wear Recoleta Cemetery mausoleum, the Palacio de Justica building in Plaza Lavalle, a rosy cloud view from the top of the English Tower in Retiro, the Japanese Gardens in Palermo, the stunning Palacio de Aguas Corrientes building on Av. Cordoba, and finally, some varied photos of Recoleta and it’s Basilica, Nuestra Señora del Pilar. Nice shots Karine!
• The fantastically named ArJewTino wrote an interesting alternative 12 step guide to having fun in Buenos Aires, which certainly raised a smile in places, and followed it up with a few more thoughts on BA
• At opposing ends of the Buenos Aires activities spectrum, the Buenos Aires Zoo and the Art Scene in Buenos Aires are both given the review treatment by the Argentina travel blog writers
• Dan has pictures and comments on the ‘changing of the guard’ ceremony at the Malvinas War Memorial in Plaza San Martin. Having seen this myself a few times, I can recommend you take the time to view it… although if you are British like me, probably best to keep a low profile when you do
• Robert Wright comes up with the (blogging) goods once again, this time with another of his excellent Buenos Aires, then and now posts, comparing past photos of BA buildings to what is seen in the present day. Not to be missed! He follows up with some pictures and info about the other famous cemetery in Buenos Aires, Chacarita, after his unplanned trip there (and he’s not the first to make an unplanned trip to the cemetery, I’m sure!)
• Diva would be happy to give you a tour of Chacarita cemetery, but only if you’re cool enough (I’m not!)
• Dalila puts up a slide show showcasing the many different types of doors in Palermo Viejo - no sign of Jim Morrison though She widens her scope a bit with her next slide show, which is of some of the beautiful houses in Palermo Viejo [no, can't think of a decent joke here Anyone else?]
• Buenos Aires Spotting (please note the new name AND URL folks, for what used to be Buenos Aires Trendhunter) spots (what else?) that Resfest 2007, a hip digital arts festival, will take place in the equally hip Malba art museum, on the last weekend of March
• Jude takes a trip to the Abasto shopping center for some AbFab-type shenanigans… WARNING, please do not click her link if you do not want to see some, ahem, ‘Camel Toe’! If you want more info on this shopping center and its architecture, check out my earlier post on the Abasto Mall
• My new friend Ken has a post about our weekend trip to the races at Palermo Hipodromo, and it seems he already knows more about horse racing in Argentina than I do! All the same, feel free to check out my past blog post on Palermo Hipodromo too!

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[1st - 7th January 2007]

Hello, and welcome to the first Buenos Aires blog roundup of 2007! This week I got back to Argentina from a short Christmas holiday in my native UK, went straight back to my very busy day job to construct an entire new website for our company, moved apartment from Abasto to Recoleta (I guess that could count as ‘going up in the world’…but I liked Abasto), and still even found time to write one proper blog post! Lets see if I can manage two this week (I already have one quite silly post up my sleeve).

Maybe the rest of the Buenos Aires bloggers have been as busy as me so far in 2007, because there was not so much posting action this week. But oh what quality action it was…

Things To See & Do in Buenos Aires

• Karine has taken some wonderful photos of Cafe Tortoni, the cafe in a city of cafes, and tells us a little bit about the place and its history
• And she’s certainly been covering the tourist staples this week, with some pics and info about Plaza Dorrego, which you can read a lot more about, if you are so inclined, from a post I wrote a while back: Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo
• Isabelle from Argentina’s Travel Blog has obviously been partying it up in BA over Christmas and new year, and why not? - read her reports on Buenos Aires Nightlife and New Year’s Eve in BA
• As I’ve said before, I just can’t wait for Robert’s map of Recoleta cemetery to come out….it’s looking fabulous, I have to say
• And Robert’s also been taking some great pictures of Buenos Aires lit up by night too
• Not Buenos Aires city as usual, but instead Buenos Aires province…I’ve been following Dan’s informative posts on his trip to Mar del Plata this week

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First Weekly Buenos Aires Blog Update

[4th - 10th December 2006]

Hello and welcome to the first of my new weekly highlights posts covering what has caught my eye in the Buenos Aires blogosphere. Think of this a kind of a low-brow Global Voices Online solely covering BA.

Unfortunately, I can’t write in this blog as much as I would like to, but there are many other excellent blogs about BA out there - and so I am going to let them do some of the work for me! Most of the ones I know of can be found listed over at the excellent Bloggers in Argentina.

Each week I will link to the best blog posts I have read that I think will be of interest to visitors to Buenos Aires, and post the links up here, with a little commentary added. If I have missed something interesting out or seem to be overlooking a whole blog completely, please comment below to draw my attention to it. Here goes (warning, there is a lot this week!)…

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Plaza Dorrego (Corner of Defensa and Humberto Primo), San Telmo

Buenos Aires ‘Must Do’

Spending a Sunday in and around Plaza Dorrego is one of the few things that ranks as a ‘must do’ sightseeing attraction for visitors to Buenos Aires. On the seventh day of the week, when the rest of the city is resting, the city closes much of neighboring Defensa street to traffic, and this part of San Telmo explodes into a mass of around 8,000 people, locals and tourists alike. They come to peruse antiques and knickknacks, watch the outdoor tango dancing and other performers, sit for a coffee or beer outside a classic old cafe, or just aimlessly wander around the interesting chaos. This, more or less, is the Plaza Dorrego Sunday market, also known as the “Feria de San Pedro Telmo”.

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