Buenos Aires 5-Day Itinerary: Old Town, Palermo and Tigre

Plaza de Mayo has been the political and historical heart of Buenos Aires since the city's founding. Around it sit the Casa Rosada (the seat of Argentina's government, with the balcony where Eva Perón once addressed crowds), the colonial Cabildo, and the Metropolitan Cathedral, where Pope Francis served as archbishop before Rome. On protest days, which are fairly common in Buenos Aires, the square still plays its historic role as a stage for demonstrations.

It's worth setting aside your arrival afternoon to walk this area slowly: beyond the square, Avenida de Mayo runs off it lined with early 20th-century architecture, including historic cafés like Café Tortoni, one of the oldest in South America.

The Obelisk is Buenos Aires' most photographed symbol, built in 1936 at the crossing of Avenida 9 de Julio (often cited as one of the widest avenues in the world, with up to 16 lanes) and Avenida Corrientes, the city's theater street. It's also where the city celebrates national team titles, with crowds flooding the entire avenue.

Late afternoon is the prettiest time to see the Obelisk, with low light hitting the surrounding buildings and the after-work crowd moving through. From there it's an easy walk to Teatro Colón, considered one of the best-sounding opera houses in the world, or a quick subte ride back to your hotel.

San Telmo is Buenos Aires' oldest neighborhood, with cobblestone streets, colonial-era buildings, and the traditional antiques fair on Plaza Dorrego, which takes over the streets every Sunday with close to 300 stalls selling old furniture, vinyl records, crafts, and street tango performances. Even outside Sunday, the neighborhood is worth a visit for the Mercado de San Telmo, a covered market from 1897 still in daily use.

It's also home to some of the city's most authentic tango nightlife, away from the pricier tourist shows downtown, worth asking around the neighborhood for a milonga, a local social tango dance, happening that night.

La Boca is the old port neighborhood that gave birth to tango and to the Boca Juniors football club. Caminito, its most famous street-museum, is a row of brightly painted corrugated-metal houses, originally built by immigrants using leftover paint from the docks, today lined with street art, sidewalk restaurant tables, and tango dancers posing for photos.

It's the most photogenic stop on the itinerary, but also the one that calls for the most awareness: stick to the busy streets during the day and avoid wandering beyond the main tourist circuit, as the areas surrounding La Boca have a reputation for being unsafe at night.

La Recoleta Cemetery is one of the most striking cemeteries in the world: over 6,400 neoclassical, art nouveau, and art deco mausoleums holding Argentina's political and cultural elite since 1822, including the country's most-visited grave, that of Eva Perón. Admission is free, and it's worth setting aside at least 90 minutes to walk its narrow corridors.

Right next door, the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar and the Centro Cultural Recoleta round out the visit, and the weekend crafts fair on the square out front is a good spot for lunch, with food trucks and live music.

Also a short walk from Recoleta, on Avenida del Libertador, the National Museum of Fine Arts has free admission and holds more than 13,000 works, including pieces by Rembrandt, Rodin, El Greco and a first-rate collection of Argentine art. It's open Tuesday to Sunday (Tuesday to Friday 11am-7:30pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am-7:30pm), closed Mondays. That is enough for a quick pass through the main galleries before moving on.

About 400 meters from the museum, up Avenida del Libertador, the Floralis Genérica is a 20-meter steel-and-aluminum sculpture created by Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano and unveiled in 2002 on the Plaza de las Naciones Unidas. Its six petals open in the morning and close in the evening, and on four nights a year (May 25, September 21, December 24 and 31) they stay open all night. There's no ticket or line, just a quick stop for photos on the way to another part of the neighborhood.

Palermo is Buenos Aires' greenest and largest neighborhood, home to the Bosques de Palermo (Parque Tres de Febrero), 80 hectares of lakes, bike paths, and gardens, including the Jardín Japonés, the largest Japanese garden outside Japan, with a red bridge, a koi pond, and a traditional tea house. Entry to the garden costs a few dollars and is worth setting aside at least an hour for.

After the park, Palermo Soho and Palermo Hollywood, the neighborhood's trendiest pockets, are packed with independent design shops, street murals, and the city's highest concentration of restaurants and bars, the right way to close out the afternoon with some shopping and a proper dinner before the itinerary's last day.

A ten-minute walk from the Japanese Garden, MALBA is the museum that closes the Palermo day well. The glass and concrete building opened in 2001 and holds the 20th-century Latin American collection assembled by Eduardo Costantini, with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Tarsila do Amaral and Antonio Berni on the same floor.

The work most people come for is Tarsila’s Abaporu, bought by Costantini in 1995 and still the most expensive Brazilian painting ever sold. Tickets run about 8 dollars, Wednesdays are half price, and 90 minutes covers the permanent collection without rushing.

Tigre sits about 35 km from downtown Buenos Aires and is the most popular day trip outside the capital. The train leaves from Retiro Station (or, in its more scenic version, the Tren de la Costa, with stops along the way) and takes just under an hour to reach the end of the line. From there, the Paraná River delta opens into hundreds of channels lined with wooden houses on stilts, rowers, and the landmark Puerto de Frutos, a riverside crafts and antiques market.

A boat ride through the delta, about an hour long, is the classic way to see it, revealing a way of life very different from the rest of the big city; many people living on the islands still get home only by boat. It's the perfect close to the itinerary: a full day of nature and water before the flight home.

A fifteen-minute walk from Tigre station, the Puerto de Frutos is the market that gave the town its name and the best way to end the day trip. It started in the 19th century as a depot for fruit and timber brought down from the Delta by boat, and today it is hundreds of stalls of crafts, wicker furniture, plants and food, still on the riverbank.

It opens daily, but weekends are when it is genuinely full and alive. Prices beat Palermo for the same kind of craft, and the waterside food court is a calm place to wait for the train back. Allow 90 minutes.