Buenos Aires is surrounded by numerous legends - and they are all true. It is the city of tango, football, and the best steaks in the world, with magnificent palaces, endless avenues, and historic buildings. The inhabitants call themselves "Porteños" (a word derived from "puerto", port). When they sleep is a mystery: You eat late, go dancing late, and there is no siesta in contrast to the inland. The Argentine capital is the center of the metropolitan region of Gran Buenos Aires, where more than 13 million inhabitants live. The capital is surrounded on the one hand by water from the Rio de la Plata, an estuary of the Rio Parana and the Rio Uruguay, which flow off the Argentine coast into the South Atlantic. Further inland are the Pampas, the fertile grass steppes of Argentina.

Best travel time for Buenos Aires

A city trip to Buenos Aires is not so much about exploring all the sights as it is about enjoying the atmosphere of the city. There are countless bars and restaurants, great shopping, historic districts with individual shops, cafés, tango bars, hip quarters with stylish architecture, and designer shops. And you should plan some time for that. If you also want to see some of the surroundings and are planning a trip to the Pampas or the #mountains, two weeks stay is absolutely appropriate. When it is winter in the southern hemisphere, Argentina has the best summer weather. But for your city trip to Buenos Aires, it should not be too hot. In the months from September to November, thus in the Argentine spring, as well as in the autumn between March and May moderate temperatures of on average 19 to 25 degrees prevail. Especially in spring Buenos Aires is worth a trip: The violet Jacarandas bloom and transform the city into a sea of colors.

Highlights

Palermo is the district where the Bohemians once settled - but fashion labels, fine bars, and galleries have long since discovered it. The quarter is (still) one of the most beautiful in the city. The construction boom has also reached Palermo: more and more small houses are being demolished and skyscrapers erected in their place. In Palermo, you have to go on a voyage of discovery and rummage. Palermo Hollywood is the vernacular for the northern part of the district, as many television studios are located here.

Every Sunday there is a large market in the San Telmo district, where you can find everything from valuable antiques to kitsch souvenirs of a different kind.

The colorful houses of La Boca have made the district the most famous of the 48 neighborhoods. The district was founded by immigrants at the end of the 19th century and is one of the most original and exciting in the capital. The inhabitants painted their formerly unadorned wooden and corrugated iron huts in a colorful way and thus brought color to the working-class district. The past is still omnipresent in La Boca today and the district is not only colorful because of its houses: bars, restaurants, shops and cafés line up next to each other and life rages everywhere. 

In the middle of one of the most elegant residential areas of Buenos Aires lies a city within a city: the Recoleta cemetery was built at the end of the 19th century and covers an area of 5.5 hectares. The large family graves and mausoleums are partly preserved in full splendor, partly in a morbid charm. Many great personalities found their last resting place in the cemetery of Recoleta, the most famous being Evita Peron.

Buenos Aires is a paradise for book lovers: there are small shops everywhere, many with cafés. The most bombastic bookshop, Gran Splendid (Librería Ateneo), is housed in an old theatre from 1919. Even if you don't buy anything, it's worth a visit! On the former stage, there is now a café. It's best to go to the top floor and be amazed!

This is what you should try

Steak must be, at least for the meat lovers among you. If you want to have it typically Argentine, visit a steak house called Parrilla. But Buenos Aires has a lot more culinary delights to offer. If you take a look at the restaurant landscape, you will notice that the cuisine of the capital is strongly influenced by different immigrant groups. For example, there are Armenian, Peruvian, Korean, Polish and German restaurants.

Take a break

It is easy to take a break from city life in Buenos Aires, because the Tigre Delta is located directly in front of the gates of the city. In spite of the short distance, a completely different world awaits you there: Jaguars once lived around the Rio de la Plata, which gave the river valley its name. Today, the Porteños' summer houses line the banks of the river and a dense jungle of exotic plants and animals awaits you in the hinterland.