After 3 years of delays, my wife and I finally got to make our trip to Buenos Aires. Big thanks to many on the TripAdvisor forum who have thoughtfully posted over the years- it helped us land with a great plan.
–Airport: we landed at EZE around 10pm on a Friday evening. Took us about 75 minutes to make it through customs. We took a cab to Palermo via remis for $25. On our way back we took an Uber for $6.
–Lodging: Sileo Apart: https://www.booking.com/hotel/ar/sileo.html
Highly recommend! Excellent location, but an unexpected highlight was that each day you get a voucher you can use at La Constanza around the corner. We had very little expectations for "free breakfast" but it was wonderful! 2 cafe con leches, 2 medialunas, scrambled eggs, and orange juice. Bonus points for giving us late checkout on our last day.
–Highly Recommend:
-Franca: hands down best meal of the trip, and top 5 meal for us all time. We sat at the bar and got to chat with the chefs the whole evening and had an amazing time. We were thrilled to see they made the Michelin guide. Cannot recommend this place enough.
-Don Julio: again, we know it's not "the best" steakhouse, but they served wine despite the ban on selling alcohol due to the election.
-Quotidiano: memorable home-made pastas and stiff pours of wine glasses
-Salvaje: edgy, hipster bakery with delicious pastries and fun takes on avocado toasts.
-Tres Monos: some of the friendliest service with the best drinks we had. Cocktails in BA in general were very underwhelming but these ones stood out.
-Plaza Serrano at night: so many craft breweries and spots for nightlife
-Cafe Tortoni: yes we know it's touristy, but we were tourists! It rained unexpectedly one day so we ducked in here to pass the time and it was spectacular. Felt like traveling back in time. The tango show was a little hokey compared to the ones we observed "on the street" in San Telmo, but still great dancers.
–Don't Miss Activities:
Casa Rosada / Plaza de Mayo / Obelisk
Museo de Bellas Artes: free admission and a really cool Indigenous display
San Telmo Sunday feria
Armenian Immigrants Plaza: nice area in Palermo with lots of shops and cafes
Recoleta Cemetery
–If You Have Time:
MALMA: only one floor is currently open, so I'm sure it's better when all floors are accessible.
El Ataneo: nice old bookstore
Puerto Madero: very modern, sleek waterfront area with an iconic bridge. The downside is that it felt pretty stale to us.
Japanese Garden
–Tried and Wasn't for us:
-Niño Gordo: just an instagram hype kind of place. There's a time limit on the table, and one of the dishes takes an hour to prepare, but we were told we weren't allowed to order it because we didn't have enough time left, even though it had taken them so long to get us our drinks and ask for our food order.
-Andante
-Preferido de Palermo
-Meiji restaurant
-Palacio Barolo
-Narda Comedor: pretty bland breakfast that didn't stand out as much as we thought it might.
-La Boca / camioneta
Wish we could have checked out Patio de Los Lecheros and Julia but it didn't work out. We have heard great things about these spots though.
We exchanged $100 two different times (at 940 while blue was 950) and that was plenty of cash. We only used it for tips. Everywhere else accepted card and we got the blue rate right away. I had the impression that cash was going to be way more important during the trip but it really was not so for us.
In general we thought this trip was a great value for obvious reasons. We had some really memorable interactions with Porteños throughout the trip. It's easy to understand why this corner of the world is such an intriguing destination for many.
–Airport: we landed at EZE around 10pm on a Friday evening. Took us about 75 minutes to make it through customs. We took a cab to Palermo via remis for $25. On our way back we took an Uber for $6.
–Lodging: Sileo Apart: https://www.booking.com/hotel/ar/sileo.html
Highly recommend! Excellent location, but an unexpected highlight was that each day you get a voucher you can use at La Constanza around the corner. We had very little expectations for "free breakfast" but it was wonderful! 2 cafe con leches, 2 medialunas, scrambled eggs, and orange juice. Bonus points for giving us late checkout on our last day.
–Highly Recommend:
-Franca: hands down best meal of the trip, and top 5 meal for us all time. We sat at the bar and got to chat with the chefs the whole evening and had an amazing time. We were thrilled to see they made the Michelin guide. Cannot recommend this place enough.
-Don Julio: again, we know it's not "the best" steakhouse, but they served wine despite the ban on selling alcohol due to the election.
-Quotidiano: memorable home-made pastas and stiff pours of wine glasses
-Salvaje: edgy, hipster bakery with delicious pastries and fun takes on avocado toasts.
-Tres Monos: some of the friendliest service with the best drinks we had. Cocktails in BA in general were very underwhelming but these ones stood out.
-Plaza Serrano at night: so many craft breweries and spots for nightlife
-Cafe Tortoni: yes we know it's touristy, but we were tourists! It rained unexpectedly one day so we ducked in here to pass the time and it was spectacular. Felt like traveling back in time. The tango show was a little hokey compared to the ones we observed "on the street" in San Telmo, but still great dancers.
–Don't Miss Activities:
Casa Rosada / Plaza de Mayo / Obelisk
Museo de Bellas Artes: free admission and a really cool Indigenous display
San Telmo Sunday feria
Armenian Immigrants Plaza: nice area in Palermo with lots of shops and cafes
Recoleta Cemetery
–If You Have Time:
MALMA: only one floor is currently open, so I'm sure it's better when all floors are accessible.
El Ataneo: nice old bookstore
Puerto Madero: very modern, sleek waterfront area with an iconic bridge. The downside is that it felt pretty stale to us.
Japanese Garden
–Tried and Wasn't for us:
-Niño Gordo: just an instagram hype kind of place. There's a time limit on the table, and one of the dishes takes an hour to prepare, but we were told we weren't allowed to order it because we didn't have enough time left, even though it had taken them so long to get us our drinks and ask for our food order.
-Andante
-Preferido de Palermo
-Meiji restaurant
-Palacio Barolo
-Narda Comedor: pretty bland breakfast that didn't stand out as much as we thought it might.
-La Boca / camioneta
Wish we could have checked out Patio de Los Lecheros and Julia but it didn't work out. We have heard great things about these spots though.
We exchanged $100 two different times (at 940 while blue was 950) and that was plenty of cash. We only used it for tips. Everywhere else accepted card and we got the blue rate right away. I had the impression that cash was going to be way more important during the trip but it really was not so for us.
In general we thought this trip was a great value for obvious reasons. We had some really memorable interactions with Porteños throughout the trip. It's easy to understand why this corner of the world is such an intriguing destination for many.
