Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires looks like a European city dropped beside a river so wide it reads as a sea. People walk under balconies and domes, drink coffee at the counter at any hour, and the night gets going late. Tango was born in its port districts and is still danced on the paving stones, among the painted houses of Caminito and the antique stalls of San Telmo. The city loves a stage: Teatro Colón ranks with the finest opera houses in the world, and an old theatre has become a bookshop, El Ateneo Grand Splendid, where people read sitting in the boxes. At the Recoleta cemetery, avenues of marble mausoleums make a city inside the city. On Plaza de Mayo, the pink front of Casa Rosada is a reminder that politics happens in the street here. Beef grilled over wood is a serious business, served with a glass of Malbec, and dinners run long past midnight.