Sunday was spent enjoying the market and weekly antique market (ferria de antiquidades) in the old barrio of San Telmo. This barrio is a colonial neighborhood first inhabited by the BA elite where they built beautiful European style mansions. In 1871 there was a yellow fever epidemic and the wealthy fled for higher ground and cleaner air in places like Recoleta. We lucked into seeing a tango performance in a park in the main square.
The immigrants moved in behind them and those mansions became tenement buildings. The neighborhood, filled with antique stores and narrow cobblestone streets is a melting pot of many cultures and known as home of Tango dance.
The Mercado is a covered market typical of many old cities but we didn’t see any fresh produce, fish on ice or dead animals like you see in Europe. This market has lots of modern restaurants and a variety of tourist shops. We were able to snag bar seats at Regina for pizza and a Caesar salad. As long as you don’t notice that the cooks don’t wear gloves and handle everything with hands, you will enjoy the meal immensely.
The streets were full of vendor booths selling things we could not bring home. All very colorful. We took a break in shady park on Defensa street just in front of a tango performance.
Our evening plans included dinner at a restaurant near our hotel, which I had mistaken as being San Juaninos, an empanada joint. It turned out that our fine dining was Fervor, a renowned parilla in Recoleta. The empanada restaurant was next door and sadly we never got to eat there.
We were joined by Reza, a new friend we had met at the Asado BBQ experience. He lives in Toronto and was born in Tehran. We had lots of fun and all had steaks. With a bottle.of wine, a salad, and some sides the total bill was just over $100 for five!
We ordered an Uber to take us back to San Telmo for a Tango show with only 15 minutes to spare. The four of us climbed into his very small car and before he went a block he had a flat tire. We bailed out and quickly got another Uber with Bills phone, arriving before the show began. The El Viejo Almacen theatre has been around for xx years… The show was very fun, colorful and fast paced. There was a five piece band, four couples dancing more traditional tango and a fifth couple doing an amazing gaucho themed act with drums and lighted ropes. The show was two hours without a break. A drink was included as well as a ride back to our hotel.
This tango house was founded in 1969 but the building was established as a Russian restaurant around 1900. Inside the building feels very old school. The name of the venue means the old store and comes from the Tango song Sentimiento Gaucho that refers to an old general store near the location of this tango house. (solsalute.com)
The best part of the day was video calls with my grands from the bathroom of the theatre before the show!
All in all a very full and delightful day.