Town centre shopping and Puerto Madero

Casa Rosada

On Tuesday last week we went into the centre of BsAs. We tried out the subte (underground) for the first time and planned to get a sube card and find the tourist information office before seeing some sights. I already posted about the sube, so you know the trouble we had there, but we couldn't find tourist information either! We did walk around Plaza de Mayo, with the Casa Rosada, which is the pink equivalent of the White House and featured in the film Evita, but you can't go in during the week.

We then got told off for taking photographs of another government building. We were only interested in the stonework, but as it turned out to be the intelligence service building, I guess they were never going to be too keen!

On our search for the tourist info, we happened to find ourselves outside of Galeria Pacificas, which is a large shopping mall.  It seemed rude not to go in, especially as it has a very impressive painted domed ceiling. [Did you fall for that??] But in fact it turned out to be quite fortunate as I managed to pick up the thermals and waterproof trousers that I still needed for our onward journey; not very exciting I know, but definitely necessary! We had a quick lunch in the food court, where we were fascinated to see that despite having plastic plates and cutlery, those having the parilla still got one of the typical mini grill plates with their meat on. Clearly having the meat served up on a plastic plate would be a step too far!

Mujeres Bridge at Puerto Madero

 After our shopping we headed off to look around Puerta Madero, which is the newly developed and rather expensive, docks area. You can see that the area right on the river would be quite nice in the summer when everyone is eating outside, but really the whole area is just too new and soulless. The mujeres (womens') bridge is quite impressive.  The central section rotates 90 degrees to allow ships to pass through.

We had hoped to visit the Sarmiento Frigate, a frigate ship dating from around 1890, which now is a museum, but were too late to get on.  Another time then!

We decided to treat ourselves to dinner at one of the expensive restaurants on the riverside, as it was supposed to have especially good steaks. And certainly I was not disappointed - it has gone straight to the top of the steak rankings for me.

the pool at Hotel Faena

The taps in the loos at Hotel Faena

We also had a cocktail in Hotel Faena, a very upmarket hotel designed by Philippe Stark. It was very elaborate, but I quite liked most of it. The toilets had impressive swan taps and were the first place we've seen double ply toilet paper - so it must be posh! However the 'crowning glory' had to be the pool, with a huge crown sat in the middle of it - fun, but unbelievably camp!