Argentina - Argentinië

Casa Rosada (Pink House) - or officially Casa de Gobierno - is one of the main landmarks of Buenos Aires and dominates the main square of the city Plaza de Mayo. The pink coloured building houses the Argentine national government and the president’s office. It is also the place where many of the major historic events of the country took place. Among them the scenes when Juan and Evita Perón addressed the masses from a balcony. The Casa Rosada was constructed on the site of a fort established by the Spanish in 1580 and used by the Spanish colonial viceroys. After the Argentine independence (1816), the fort was redeveloped into a customs house by a British architect. In 1862 the building was chosen by President Bartolomé Mitre to be the seat of his government. His successor - President Sarmiento - expanded the building and is believed to have ordered it to be painted pink. The current building was completed in 1884. Casa Rosada can be visited during a guided tour. The building also houses a museum, which contains objects relating to former presidents of Argentina. It has been declared a National Historic Monument of Argentina in 1942.

The Catedral Metropolitana is the most important church in Buenos Aires, located on the Plaza de Mayo. It is the Catholic Church's main site in Argentina, where pope Francis, as archbishop Jorge Bergoglio, used to perform mass before assuming office in the Vatican in 2013. The first church on this site was built in 1580, when the city of Buenos Aires was founded. The first main church of Buenos Aires was a modest building made of wood and adobe, and was replaced by a new one in 1605, which also had to be rebuild. Due to the bad quality of its building materials, the tower and the roof of this church fell down in the early 1680s. In 1684, bishop Azcona Imberto ordered the rebuilding of the Catedral Metropolitana . After eleven years the main part - without towers and façade - of the church was completed. Due to economic problems and slow construction progress, it took until 1727 before the cathedral was completely finished. In 1752 the nave of the cathedral collapsed again, after which it had to be completely rebuilt. It was not until 1863 that the cathedral - including a façade - reached its current form. The exterior (PiP1) has not the typical cathedral profile as it has no towers and it looks more like a Greek temple with its twelve columns, representing Jesus’s apostles. Cathedral Metropolitana has an impressive interior décor - with its five naves and transept, surmounted by a 41-meters high vault - in neo-Romanesque and neo-Baroque styles. The main gilt wood altarpiece depicts the Holy Trinity and is one of a few remaining elements from colonial times (1785). The cathedral also hosts a marble mausoleum with the remains of general San Martin, who was the leader of the independence struggle of South America against the Spanish occupier (PiP3).

La Boca is one of the 47 <i.barrios (neighbourhoods) of Buenos Aires, located near the old port of the city. La Boca means in English ‘the mouth’. Its is named so because it is situated at the mouth of the river Riachuelco. This proximity to the river is in fact the reason for La Boca’s existence: the neighbourhood used to consist solely of shipyards and of the houses of people - in the beginning with many settlers from Italy - who worked in them. The houses were built with cast-off ship building materials, meaning that they were largely constructed of materials such as planks, sheet metal and corrugated iron. Houses were painted with whatever leftover paint they could find from the nearby dockyard. These colourful houses nowadays are a magnet for tourists and La Boca is one the main destinations for visitors. Colourful El Cominito (Little Walkway) - a formerly rail route - is the main attraction with (pseudo) art galleries, artists and tango dancers. The little pedestrian street is also a tourist trap with touts, hawkers, hustlers and overpriced knick-knacks. La Boca is also well known for its football club Boca Juniors and their stadium La Bombonera (PiP5)).

In the early 18th century monks of the Order of the Recoletos arrived in this area. The order was disbanded in 1822. The garden of the convent was converted into the first public cemetery in Buenos Aires. The cemetery is built around the former convent and the Our Lady of Pilar church (Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Pilar), built in 1732. Recoleta Cemetery has a surface of 5.5 hectares and contains almost 4.700 vaults. The entrance to the cemetery is through neo-classical gates with tall Doric columns. The cemetery has many elaborate marble mausoleums, decorated with statues, in a wide variety of architectural styles. Materials used between 1880 and 1930 in the construction of tombs were imported from Paris and Milan. The entire cemetery is laid out in sections like city blocks, with wide tree-lined main walkways branching into sidewalks filled with mausoleums. Many notable people (presidents of Argentina, Nobel Prize winners, the founder of the Argentine Navy and a granddaughter of Napoleon), are buried on the Recoleta Cemetery. Perhaps the most well known of all is Eva Perón. Main picture: Recoleta Cemetery, seen from the top of Hotel Etoile. PiP1: one of the side ‘streets’ PiP2: plaque on the mausoleum of the Eva Peron mausoleum

The Feria de Mataderos (Mataderos Fair) is a lesser known - located further away from the city center – attraction. It attracts thousands of visitors on Sundays, although during our visit - many years ago - it seemed if we were the only foreign tourists. The folk market and fair is held in the streets, opposite the former Mercado Nacional de Hacienda (National Livestock Market) in the working-class Mataderos neighbourhood. Merchants in hundreds of stands offer (handmade) crafts, as well as traditional Argentine cuisine. There is also a stage - the fair started with singing the national anthem - where musical shows and folklore dancing take place. In one of the streets we saw gaucho’s horse riding, contesting each other in a kind of game.

The little town of Tigre - 30 km northwest of Buenos Aires - is located on the edge of the immense delta of the Paraná River, also known as the Islas del Paraná . It was already a small harbour town around 1770, but it was not until the early 1800s that it was given a village centre and from 1880 the wealthy inhabitants of Buenos Aires spend their weekends and holidays and built beautiful mansions. Nowadays it's still a place where many of Buenos Aires' residents love to come and relax for the day. Tigre is also famous for its rowing clubs and regattas. Most of the clubs are housed in stately clubhouses. In the town you can still taste the atmosphere of the past with all those elegant buildings. The delta - about 26,000 km2 - consists of about a hundred small rivers with many islands in between. Where these are not too swampy, the porteño's (residents of Buenos Aires) have built holiday homes, with a jetty or on poles. The village was originally named Las Conchas after a local river, but became popularly known as 'Tigre' in the 19th century. Tigre was also the name of a stream and is thought to derive from the tigres (jaguars) seen in the area when it was first settled. In 1952, the name of the village was officially changed to Tigre. We visited the area on a public riverboat (PiP1), made a walk around one of the island with lush flora and fauna and had a lunch in one of the restaurants.

The Iguazú Falls are waterfalls of the Iguazú River on the border of Argentina and Brazil. They are the largest waterfalls system in the world. The Iguazú River rises near the Brazilian city of Curitiba. For most of its course, the river flows through Brazil; however, most of the falls are on the Argentine side. The Iguazú Falls are located where the river tumbles over the edge of the Paraná Plateau. The edge has a length of 2,7 kilometers and numerous islands divide the falls into many separate waterfalls and cataracts, varying between 60 to 82 meters high. The number of these smaller waterfalls fluctuates from 150 to 300, depending on the water level. Approximately half of the river's flow falls into a long and narrow chasm, called the Devil's Throat (PiP 1).

The Cabildo de Salta is the oldest (colonial) government building in the city of Salta. It housed headquarters of the authorities from 1626 to 1888. The cabildo was rebuilt in 1676. The construction of the current building began around 1780 and was finished around 1783. Its tower was built several years later. The cabildo housed the police and the seat of the Government House until 1880. Nine years later it was sold at public auction to individuals, being occupied by owners, tenants, business premises and a hotel. Later it was partially demolished. In 1945 it was restored and it is considered being the most complete and best preserved town hall in Argentina. In 1937 the building was declared a National Historical Monument. Nowadays it houses the Museo Histórico den Norte .

When the city of Salta was founded in1582 by the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma, some estates where gifted to the Franciscan monks. The first church on this place dates back to the year of 1625, although its instability made it necessary to built a new building in 1674. After a devastating fire Iglesia San Francisco (St. Francis Church) was rebuilt in 1759. The church became its current exterior and façade in 1872. Five years later the construction of the impressive bell tower started; with a height of 54 meters it is the highest in South America. The belfry houses a bronze bell made from the cannons used in the Argentine War of Independence. Nowadays Iglesia San Francisco - with its vivid colours and white pillars - is one of the most famous landmarks of Salta. A statue of St. Francis of Assisi stands in front of the church. In 1941 the church was declared a National Historical Monument.