Buenos Aires

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Buenos Aires is the most sophisticated and elegant city in South America, it has something to offer everyone - beautiful parks, football stadiums, restaurants, golf courses, casinos, night clubs, horse racing and of course the famous tango clubs.

The flamboyancy of the architecture reflects the confidence and aspirations of the city. Buenos Aires is both proud of its European heritage and uniquely South American. It is a city to be enjoyed and explored in depth.

Buenos Aires City Tour - A fascinating 3-hour tour of the elegant turn-of-the-century districts of South America's most sophisticated city. From the charming cobbled alleys and colonial architecture of San Telmo along to the Plaza de Mayo, dominated by the Casa Rosada (Government House), the Nación Bank, the Cathedral and original Parliament House, up the leafy Avenida de Mayo towards the imposing grandeur of the Palace of Congress and then on to finish at the historically fascinating Recoleta Cemetery.

Buenos Aires Walking Tour - For people who enjoy walking the best way to see a city is on foot. Tours can be designed to suit the interests of the individual or group. From the historic Plaza de Mayo dominated by the salmon-coloured Government House (Casa Rosada) from whose balcony Eva Perón addressed the masses, the Avenida de Mayo leads past the art-nouveau Café Tortoni where the intellectual elite of the day still gather to drink coffee and Legui, across the broad 9th of July Avenue and along the leafy streets to the monumental Palace of Congress. Turning right along Callao Avenue, crossing the busy and glamorous shopping avenue of Santa Fé, you eventually reach the Recoleta area. With its broad esplanade of cafés, the famous cemetery where the country's great are buried and a contemporary art and design centre to rival that of London or New York.

Buenos Aires Cultural Tour - Buenos Aires today offers tourists and locals a broad choice of opportunities to enjoy its artistic and cultural heritage; its 57 museums house permanent and visiting collections of classical and contemporary art while the Colon Theatre is itself a living museum, displaying the costumes and memorabilia of performances past and host to the world's top orchestras, ballets, and opera companies of the present. Begin your tour with a visit to the Colon Theatre before strolling round the cool avenues of the historic Recoleta Cemetery, where the country's founding fathers and patrician families lie in style, including Eva Perón. The tour ends with a visit to the Fernández Blanco Museum of Spanish American Art whose collection of colonial silverwork is today considered to be one of the most representative and comprehensive in South America.

Estancia on La Pampa - A unique glimpse into Argentine life in the country with style. After a drive into the pampas, you are welcomed into the home of a working ranch or estancia to see how the other half lives. Life on the estancia is a blend of tradition and technology, as the family photographs, books and silverware attest to the work and dedication of past generations, while outside the latest models of combine harvesters and other machinery ensure that the crops are harvested at the best possible moment for sale on domestic or world markets. Many of the province of Buenos Aires' most beautiful estancias are also home to the country's finest polo players as well as the wealthy motors that drove this country's economy in its heyday. You will spend a day touring the estancia and finding out how it is run, taking a drive in a horse-drawn carriage down tree-lined avenues through the main park and enjoying exquisitely-prepared local food and wine with your charming hosts.

River Tigre Delta Tour - A delightful way of spending the day is to take a boat ride through the waterways, an experience that can only be described as a mixture of the Thames and the Amazon. Weekend houses of imposing grandeur, white stuccoed fronts and manicured lawns lie among palm trees on one island, neighbour to another where untidy wooden structures perch on stilts and platforms under which play ragged children.
The tour begins with the train ride from Maipú station in the suburb of Olivos. El Tren de la Costa is a modern and comfortable train which runs on the old coastal railway line built by the English in the late 1800s, one of three which used to originate in the main downtown Retiro train-station. From the renovated Delta station at the end of the line, it is a short walk to the pier where the long wooden launches depart for different islands, carrying schoolchildren, visitors, weekend home owners and sometimes even chickens or other farmyard animals. The launches chug past luxury yachts and the market barges carrying all kinds of provisions as well as dredgers and fishing canoes, allowing for a unique glimpse into life on the river.

Gaucho Fiesta - A colourful and fun day at an estancia on the outskirts of Buenos Aires with the opportunity to try out your own equestrian skills before watching the experts. After arriving at the estancia and sampling the traditional empanadas, meat pasties which are either oven-baked or deep fried- you may visit the grounds on foot or take the opportunity to ride round on horseback, enjoying the comfortable sheepskin cushioning the saddle with the reins resting in one hand. The gaucho riding style has developed over the centuries with comfort as the main priority as they spent -and still do- many hours in the saddle, buckling their blankets, sheepskins and ponchos over the saddle to be used as sleeping mat and blanket at night. The very pace of the horse itself is gentle, with a particular easy loping canter which both horse and rider can keep up for hours if necessary.
After a short ride, lunch is served at long trestle tables where everybody sits down together to enjoy the famous asado with slabs of tasty beef and ribs roasted slowly over a charcoal or wood fire, preceded by chorizo sausages or morcilla (black sausage) washed down with Argentine wines. After lunch, the gauchos invite you to share in some of their time-honoured customs of folksong and dance. Wearing the typical bombacha de campo - the cuffed pleated trousers- calf-length boots and wide leather belt, the gauchos dance opposite their chinas who swirl from side to side in their long ruffled dresses, in a display of courtship and chivalry.
After this, the entertainment shifts location to a neighbouring field for an impressive show of the skills that are in fact part and parcel of the gaucho's animal-herding job, combining precision with speed. The tour is shared with other visitors.