We were joined in Buenos Aires yesterday by Evelyn’s sister, Pauline and her friend, Amy (upper left image above). We spent much of their first day on a Free City Walk tour of the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, starting at Teatro Colón and ending at the well known Recoleta Cemetery. We learned fun and little known facts along the way, such as where Mr. Spock found his signature hand gesture and why the city is known as the Paris of Latin America.

One other example of a behind-the-scenes fact we heard was that the “most beautiful church” in town was built for the sole purpose of allowing the church to bestow titles upon the family that built it.  The church dominated the landscape of downtown BA, but now can only be seen by going down a narrow alley.  Why?  Because the family that built the church refused to let their daughter marry the son of another wealthy family — and that other family therefore created a huge office building that blocks all view of the church, and whose front face looks strangely like it is giving the middle finger to the home of the girl’s family…  Gotta love these Latin lover’s quarrels! 🙂

We also took a separate tour of the Teatro Colon.  This is a renowned theater which Pavarotti considered one of the five best performance theaters in the world.  It seats 2400 people, with another 300 allowed to attend standing on the 7th balcony.  Unfortunately, the tour was rather expensive and very short, without very much in the way of interesting back-story provided.

What is Buenos Aires without Tango? We stopped by Salon Canning in the Palermo area and watched some students learning Tango in the afternoon, then went to a professional Tango dance show in the evening.  We found Tango shows ranging from $20 to $150.  We chose the Passion de Tango show at Galería Pacifico which started 7:30 PM instead of 10:00 PM,  and was outstanding without the touristy nonsense and high prices. We had a wonderful dinner at La Posada around the corner before the show. The rapid steps and sensual high kicks distinguishes Argentine tango from others, and was an experience not to miss.  I can’t imagine having seen anything better by paying 8 times as much…