Argentina: Buenos Aires & the end of the world

We arrived in Buenos Aires on Christmas Day, so not surprisingly, the city was oddly deserted. To get our bearings, we took a three-hour guided tour of the city.

Downtown areas look surprisingly French, with ornate white-stone buildings from the ’20s and ’30s, set along broad avenues. Our guide Alex told us that Porteños (residents of Buenos Aires) especially enjoy four things: coffee, pizza, bookstores and theater. So we set out to sample a bit of each.

We visited El Ateneo Grand Splendide, a temple of books set in an old theater that rightfully calls itself “the most beautiful bookstore in the world.”

Italian is the largest ethnic origin of modern Argentines, due to large immigrations from Italy between 1857 and 1940. We were intrigued by a pizzeria called Cincinnati. Bill grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and we like Cincinnati chili, but we’d never heard of Cincinnati pizza. This pie was very good Napoletana pizza. The waiter couldn’t explain the name to us, but the mural shows immigration routes between Italy, Buenos Aires, New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati.

We hadn’t done a lot of planning for Buenos Aires, so we’re glad our tour ended at place we might not have discovered on our own: the eerily ornate Recoleta Cemetary. We wandered narrow rows of towering mausoleums, some crumbling, some attractive examples of Art Deco, Art Nouveau, baroque and neo-gothic architectural style.

From Buenos Aires, it was a short flight to Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego and the southernmost city in the world. We hiked in Tierra del Fuego National Park and enjoyed summertime temperatures (around 50°F during the day).

Before we boarded our Antarctic cruise ship, Lisa sent some last missives from the Post Office at the End of the World.