Argentina Travel

Shopping Palermo Viejo is as upscale, sophisticated, and hip as any shopping destination in New York or Europe, with its own brand of charm to boot. There are sidewalk cafes and juice stalls for when you get tired of shopping or walking.

Shopping fanatics will love this charming upscale-yet-downbeat district of Buenos Aires, whose charm includes cobblestone streets and boutique shopping featuring top designers from Argentina. Palermo Viejo is in the northeast part of Buenos Aires, and taxis from the center of town to this shopping district run less than $5. That’s a bargain!

The best way to see the area and get into the best shops is to walk, once you exit your taxi. Start on Avenue Armenia, where you should stop in Trosman. This boutique carries cotton separates and shimmery swimsuits do die for. To get the same quality of design in the US you would have to pay much more, but here in Palermo Viejo the cost is much much less.

Continue walking to Calle El Salvador, where you can check out superior quality leather goods at Humawaca. The leather here is especially unusual and beautiful, offered in a rainbow of colors like peach and pink! One designer at Humawaca is Ingrid Gutman. She comes from an architectural background so her bags are unusual as well as beautiful.

Stick with Calle El Salvador and you’ll run into another shop, this time featuring wonderful colorful underthings. This shop is called Juana de Arco. Take a peek just for the visual display, even if you’re not in the market to buy any undies.

On to Avenue Malabia, wehre you’ll find El Diamente for lunch. Ask for a table on the roof, where people-watching is the best around. All of Buenos Aires is visible from up here! Entrees are reasonable at $7 to $20. Along the same street head for Mariano Toledo for some couture…museum quality clothing!

A little more ways down the street make sure to stop into Ferroni, where shoe designer Josefina Ferroni makes exquisite shoes…only about a dozen of each design so you can pretty much bet that once you get back home, you’ll be the only person around wearing that shoe. The shoes are top design but reasonable prices. Ferroni is reason enough to visit Palermo Viejo.

Just a few streets away, on Calle Uriarte stop in for a drink at the hippest place in town, called Casa Cruz. Finally, a little further away, so maybe take a cab or get ready to walk a lot, is Celedonio Lohidoy. They sell one-of-a-kind jewelry in a rainbow of colors. You’ll think of wildlife and flora when you look at their pieces. Have fun here, it’s a very unusual jewelry shop, and worth the extra walking to get here. Well worth it.

Shopping Mecca

Get ready for serious shopping in Buenos Aires Argentina. Bring your credit card and head for the Alto Palermo mall, conveniently located in the center of the city, in the upscale area called Recoleta. This mall has every shop you’ll want to hit, all under one roof. Styles are current and chic and prices are so very reasonable, thanks to a 2002 economic crisis. Argentina is recovering from that crisis, but in the meantime, you will find prices to be very good. 

Another spot to hit for trendy shopping is Calle Florida, especially for Argentina’s trademark products: leather items. Calle Florida also hums with dozens of cafés. Treat yourself to café con leche, or anything with dulce de leche on it.

Alto Palermo mall and Calle Florida are full of beautiful items you’ll feel immediately attracted to, and there’s a good chance you’ll end up needing to make room in your luggage for purchases! Look for great bargains on quality, chic items like:

vintage lamps
upscale fashionable clothing
home furnishings
European-style leather shoes
leather jackets
leather handbags

Lodging in Patagonia, Argentina

Patagonia Argentina hotels are set upon a rugged paradise of richly diverse landsacape and breathtaking vistas. Visitors to the Patagonia Argentina hotels of the region can see immediately why the area has become both a haven for the rich and famous but also one of the top adventure travel destinations in the world. These days, Patagonia Argentina wine is drawing attention, and wine tourists visit from all over the world. What could be better than a visit to one of the growing number of Patagonia Argentina hotels in wine country where some of the country’s best wine is poured?

Patagonia Argentina Hotels in Wine Country

Some of the best Patagonia Argentina hotels catering to the wine enthusiast is the Correntoso Hotel. In operation since 1917, it’s named after the Patagonia Argentina river that flows into Lake Nahuel Huap. This is one of the new wave of upscale Patagonia Argentina hotels, with a wine bar, fitness room, suites with water views, and a top notch restaurant that serves Patagonia Argentina specialties like trout, deer, and spices grown in the garden of the hotel! The newest feature of many Patagonia Argentina hotels is the luxury spa. The Correntoso has a magnificent one, with hammam steam room and therapy rooms. Located in the town of Villa La Angostura, Argentina.

The  topic of Argentina Tango is no light matter. When we dream, we are good at things we want to learn. With fantasies swirling through the mind, aspiring Argentina Tango divas take to the classrooms in preparation for a pilgrimage to the Argentina Tango capital and birthplace, Buenos Aires. Many travelers have wanted to learn for years, many want to get in shape through dance, and most want to form a connetion to the dance from Argentina that symbolizes the soul of Argentina, the national charater, what we hope to feel when they arrive on the streets of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. We all start out with Argentina tango images handed down to us through movies, videos, and travel books: gorgeous toned legs jutting out from colorful, special tango-dresses, amazing shoes, and hair coifed perfectly in a shiny bun at the nape of the neck, with flower pinned at the center. How could anyone not love these images? How could you not want to learn to tango, especially before travelling to Argentina?

Basic Tango lessons will give you enough knowledge of the Argentine dance to get by at any club, whether it be in New York or Buenos Aires. They call this conversational Tango. Usually travellers might sign up for Conversational (or Basic) Tango and take classes for a few months, for up to three times a week, to prepare for a trip to Argentina. Some start out at once a week, then, as the trip draws near, will have built up to three times a week. This intensive training just before departure to Buenos Aires ensures a solid knowledge of the basica of this complex dance.

The names of the Argentina Tango steps originate in the barrios of Beunos Aires in the 1800s. Women in long skirts who danced the Argentina Tango in the rough streets make patterns in the dirt. The patterns gave the steps their names. Once you practice the steps and get good enough at basic Tango moves, you may be invited to attena a practica by your dance instructor. This is an evening session where you can dance with different partners and show off your Tango style, Argentina style!

Also, for the female Tango students out there, it’s likely that your class is made up of mostly women, then you may not have even danced with a man yet. The practica is your chance to tango with a man! You will learn something from each partner you dance with, even though you might end up feeling shy or humiliated by what you perceive to be your bad Tango style. You will meet people who are obsesses with the Tango, people who dance Tango more than 8 hours a week, and people who have been dancing Tango all their lives. It has been said that Tango is a dance you learn for life.

Tango has a language, and the words are the individual movements of the Tango. You can dance to the same piece of music over and over, and never dance it the same way. If you say something different each time you dance the Tango, you will have danced a different Tango each time.

There’s even a sense of humor to the dance, if you know the language. To be able to speak Argentina Tango, or in other words to be able to show the movements correctly, you’ll have to have some dancer intuition already in place. For example, pointed toes, flexed knees, balance tipped slightly forward, and mirroring your partner’s shoulders are all basics that you have to master, like building blocks on which the real Tango language will be constructed.

 There’s another language involved, as well: Spanish. As you learn Tango, you will learn the names of the movements, as your instructor, who might be from Argentina, calls them out. They may even be handy as you attempt a bit of traveller’s Spanish while on vacation in Argentina. Here are a few examples:

• ochos, or figures of eight
• el dibujo, or the drawing
• cruzadas, or crosses
• colgadas
• volcadas
• boleos
• ganchos