Evita and our City Tour

Hi,

It's only late afternoon today, Wednesday, our 3rd day and we've already had a wonderful day. We started off after breakfast on our bus for a city tour with Noonie, our brilliant local guide. Noonie brought us through a few different disctricts and explained their background and history. We saw Palermo, a wealthy north city suburb with an Italian influence and we drove around Recoleta and marvelled at the large stylish French sytle houses, built by the very wealthy farmers for the families in the 1800's when Argentina was a big force in global agriculture. Recoleta is still a wealthy area and the major status symbol is still a stylish Mauseleum at the Recoleta Cemetery, which is where Evita, Eva Peron is buried. Noonie filled us in on some background on Evita before we visited the Cemetery. Evita was the 5th child of an 'illegitimate' family (i.e. the family of a wealthy man's mistress) in Buenos Aires. Her father died when she was 5 and as her mother was the mistress rather than the wife, there was no provision for her family at all after his death and they struggled to live on her mother's income as a seamstress. Evita was very attractive, and was brought to the city as an actress when she was still a teenager, with limited success. She married Peron at 20, and although she undoubtedly had influence, she did not have an official position in his government when he became President. She continued to work for the poor, but was often rejected by organisers of large Charities, because she was of humble birth and was illegitimate. She died at the very young age of 33.

Public opinion in Argentina is divided on Evita's work to help the poor. It is viewed either as genuinely helping those less fortunate, or alternatively as an opportunity to get revenge on the rich, and a possible reaction to her plunge from wealthy to destitute at the age of 5.

We visited the very stylish Recoleta Cemetery. It's an amazing place with what looks like posh residential avenues. The picture at the top shows Noonie in one of these avenues inside the cemetery. The size and complexity of the burial chambers reflects the wealth and social status of the family. Here's a very well appointed chamber on the 'main road' with a glass front, containing a bust of the occupant !

The chamber where Evita is buried is a lot less spectacular. In fact is wasn't built for her and has multiple occupants. Here's Noonie pointing it out to us. Evita is buiried 12 feet deep under the walkway. Some say it's fitting that she is walked on regularly ..


After the Cemetery we went to a very famous and fashionable cafe, the Cafe Tortoni for coffee. It looks very European and reminded me of the old Bewleys on Grafton Street in Dublin. A very nice mid morning break before we continued on our tour of the city. We took a short ride on the underground to the city centre, to May Square, where Buenos Aires was founded for the second time. This was because the original city of the Holy Trinity was not located at the port, but farther north, where today's northern suburbs are. The port of Santa Maria de Buenos Aires ('Our Lady of the Good Winds' - the patron of Spanish Shippping) was to the south. The port became more and more important as the Spanish used this route to transport the silver from Peru to Europe. The Caribbean route was too dangerous because of the pirates ! The port also grew as a huge centre for contraband. The port city was later declared the Capital city of Argentina. The official name of the city is still Santa Maria de Buenos Aires, but always shortened to Buenos Aires.

We then drove on to the wonderful bohemian, artistic district of La Boca (it means the Mouth of the River). This is like a fantasy quarter with very brightly coloured houses and streets with artists painting and selling their work. It's a bit like a more 'in your face' version of Monmartre in Paris.

In the interests of balance, Noonie reluctantly brought us to see the Boca Juniors stadium on the edge of the La Boca area. She told us an interesting story of the influence of the 2 big football teams in Buenos Aires. Coke wanted to sponsor both teams. River Plate readily agreed to Coke endorsements in their club colours of red and white. Boca, however wouldn't have it, and would not allow any red and white (River Plate colours) advertisements in their stadium. Instead they now have the only Coke advertisements in the world which are not red and white. We saw the black and white Coke advertising hoardings. They looked very strange !

After La Boca, we had a wonderful lunch in a cosmopolitan restaurant on the river front in Puerto Madero. There was all sorts of food from all corners of the world, but I stuck with the local speciality of red meat ! and had some wonderful lamb, which you can see being cooked on a huge open spit .. wonderful. I've never tasted better.

After lunch, it was shopping or leisure or whatever .. ready for tonight's dinner and Tango date !