Third Week-Buenos Aries

Our third week in BA has been packed full of activities.  We have made it our goal to visit different areas of the city and also to do some shopping.  This is a great place to buy leather goods, so many of us have bought leather jackets and/or purses.  Janice continued to enjoy the very active night life and she and her friend took a side trip to Montevideo and Colonia in Uruguay.  They left part way through the week after many adventures.

We are now coming to the end of our trip...the last week.   The time has flown and we can hardly believe that it is almost over.   We are both looking forward to coming home, more than we had expected to.  Our last week will be spent taking in some last minute sightseeing and preparing for the trip home.

One night we were treated to a spectacular lightening show from our balconies

Calle Florida...the shopping district is full of people, restaurants, leather shops and souvenir  shops

On Calle Florida there are many talented buskers

Galarias Pacifico is a fantastic and very upscale shopping mall.  In one part of it the ceiling is decorated with incredible paintings.

The mall was once an arcade of shops which have been converted.  This makes the archetecture very interesting inside the mall.

We took a day to go and visit the Japanese Gardens where, in addition to the gardens themselves there was a special orchid show.

The scenery in the gardens is lovely...but not so tranquil as this picture suggests...there were people everywhere

The Koi were huge

The orchids were lovely

On our way out we saw lovely birds with scarlet heads on the ground and in the trees.

On another excursion we went to see a professional tango show.  

We went for a lovely meal the day that Janice left

We topped off the week with a visit to the El Zanjon which is a restored colonial home which is used for corporate events.  This home is notable because during the renovations tunnels were discovered below it.  These tunnels were built as a means to control water in a creek and to prevent flooding.  They date back to the very beginnings of the city in the 18th century.  These have also been excavated and now form a type of museum with a number of exhibits showing life in Buenos Aires at the time of the building of the brick tunnels.

The original staircase has been restored

A view of the colonial home, which has now been restored and reinforced to permit for use

The once open courtyard is now covered with a glass roof, allowing sunshine to pour in

Just up the street from this building is the narrowest home in Buenos Aires.  This is only 2 meters wide and was part of an old colonial home which was given to slaves who were freed when their owners fled to the country to avoid a yellow-fever outbreak.  This building has also been restored, but is not yet open to the public.

The narrowest home in Buenos Aires