Visit Palermo, the largest of Buenos Aires’s 48 barrios. Made up of several distinct areas, Palermo is a place to shop and dine to your heart’s content and sample the city’s nightlife scene. Take pleasure in strolling elegant cobblestone streets, people-watch from sidewalk cafés and relax in beautiful gardens.
Innovative and bohemian Palermo Soho buzzes with retail activity at its artisan markets, brand name stores and high-brow boutiques. Head to Plaza Armenia and Plaza Serrano on weekends to browse dozens of arts, crafts and jewelry stands. Take time out at an outdoor café and hop between speakeasies, taprooms and wine bars by night.
Expand your appreciation of 20th-century Latin American art through the permanent and traveling exhibitions at MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). The Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo has furniture and objets d’art from around the world housed inside a grand neoclassical mansion. Retrace the life of Eva Perón at the Museo Evita and have lunch in the museum’s pretty courtyard restaurant.
Discover the natural side of Buenos Aires at the gardens, lakes and woodland of 989-acre (400-hectare) Parque Tres de Febrero. Among the park’s highlight is the El Rosedal rose gardens and landscaped Japanese Garden. Enjoy astronomy and cosmology activities at the Galileo Galilei Planetarium and peruse Argentine contemporary art at Museo Sívori.
For more outdoor fun, walk amid some 6,000 plant species at the Botanical Garden and spot free roaming wildlife at Ecoparque. Attend a polo match at the Argentine Polo Grand and horse racing at Hipódromo de Palermo. There’s more great shopping at the outlet stores of Distrito Arcos.
When night falls, locals and tourists alike flock to the bars and restaurants of Soho, Palermo Hollywood and Las Canitas. Riverfront nightclubs party into the early hours at the Costanera Norte.
Palermo is about a 20-minute drive from downtown Buenos Aires and accessible by public buses, trains and the metro. It’s served by the Bulnes, Scalabrini Ortiz, Plaza Italia and Palermo metro stations.
