The SUBTE got us started.
Early on, we fetched tickets, for a bus ride to an estancia, a week from now, from Priscilla, our French travel agent contact.
The "estancia" is, apparently, an Argentine institution - these days: cattle ranch/Porteño weekend retreat - formerly ranch/fortress against the indigenous peoples. (We'll know more next week if all goes well.)
The bulk of this day was spent in gardens: El Jardin Botanico, BA's wonderfully labelled, mid-city sanctuary of trees and shrubs and herbs from around the world. Because the weather permits, there are many, so called tropical plants (many of which we can not reliably grow in Baton Rouge because of our freezes, but which will grow fine in San Francisco ... where Mark Twain, one summer, spent the coldest "winter" he ever experienced.)
It was especially delightful for us to see in BA, plants we take for granted, like azaleas and crape myrtles, irises and confederate jasmines. Routine for us, special for them.
Larry with Bamboo at Botanical Gardens
The Jardin Japonés (Japanese Garden) - next stop, (another long walk)
was another delightful bit of calm and beauty in the middle of a bustling city. Simple, elegant plantings, stones, and bridges over ponds full of carp - big black and goldfish lolling about, hoping for an (illegal) handout ... with foreground iris and papyrus plants and distant background highrise apartments and subdued autopista traffic.
Japanese Gardens
We'd planned (hoped) for tea there, but were disappointed by the Japanese "tea house" that offered nothing more than the standard "green tea" and various flavored tisanes. (Oh well, you fly a couple thousand miles and you still can't expect to have it all.)
On the long walk home we paused at "El Anteneo Grand Splendid Bookstore", a fin de siècle theatre recently renovated into a bookstore and the most amazing of all the many. There are, in fact, more bookstores here, in BA, than we have ever seen before. Sadly, they cater (appropriately, I suppose) to the local folk, a Spanish reading bunch. Alas, we are not among them.
El Anteneo Grand Splendid Bookstore
Larry and Janell
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Location:Pasteur,Buenos Aires,Argentina
Oh, wow, I LOVE that bookstore -- talk about gorgeous sightseeing! (Okay, well, the gardens are nice too. :)
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