City tours
Bike tours
Bike Tours offers guided bike tours in both English and Spanish. The three-and-a-half to four-hour, informative bike tours lead through important areas such as Puerto madero, La Boca, San Telmo and the Plaza de Mayo. The range also includes three-speed bikes, a helmet, a bottle of water and, if necessary, rain gear and child seats.
Phone: (011) 43 11 51 99
Website: http://www.biketours.com.ar
Bus tours
Day and night bus tours take you through Buenos Aires and the surrounding area and take participants to starting points in cultural areas, from which guided tours in English begin on foot.
Travel Line Argentina offers a wide range of bus tours. Buenos Aires Tur offers tours in and outside the city.
Phone: (011) 43 93 90 00; (011) 43 71 23 04
website: http://www.buenosairestur.com
Tours
The Buenos Aires Tourist Office offers a street map, both online and in print, that shows 17 tours of the most beautiful areas of the city that can be undertaken on your own.
The Tourist Office also organizes a program of free cultural and guided tours of the city’s main neighborhoods, including those related to Evita and local writer Jorge Luis Borges, with their sights and locations. The tours will be canceled in bad weather. The Tourist Office provides information about dates and meeting points online and at the local branches.
Cicerones de Buenos Aires is a non-profit welcoming program for tourists, where residents of Buenos Aires explore the city with tourists. The city guides are volunteers who know and love their city and allow visitors to see it from a different perspective. The tours can be tailored to specific interests at any time. The offer is free.
Telephone: (011) 43 30 08 00
Website: http://www.cicerones.org.ar
Trips
San Antonio de Areco
About 100 km from the city is San Antonio de Areco, a small town with a village character and tree-lined streets, which lives from its cultural Gaucho heritage.
Gauchos are or were the cowboys of Argentina who worked on the estancias (cattle ranches) in the pampas. The tradition of the gauchos is almost entirely extinct, except where it has been specially preserved for tourists. There are numerous souvenir shops that mainly sell handmade leather gaucho products, as well as silverware and ceramics.
The city has preserved many of its cobblestone streets, as well as 19th century houses and villas. One of these buildings is the Museo Gauchesco Ricardo Güiraldes, which recreated a traditional estancia and completely furnished it with objects from the Gauchos.
Of course, a real estancia is even better. The nearby Estancia Los Dos Hermanos, (Tel: (011) 47 23 28 80. Internet: www.estancialosdoshermanos.com ) invites visitors for day trips. Advance bookings are essential. Riding is the real reason for a visit, although sulkys (traditional carriages) are also available for those who don’t want to ride. The use of the beautiful swimming pool and lunch from the grill are also included in the package of day trips to the ranch.
Buses to San Antonio de Areco run daily from Plaza Once and the Retiro bus station, and the journey takes approximately two hours. The Tourist Office of San Antonio de Areco, Calle Arellano 115 (Internet: www.arecoturismo.com.ar) provides further information. Several tour operators offer day trips to Estancias near Buenos Aires.
Tel: 0800 999 28 38
Website: http://www.bue.gov.ar
Tigre
A nice trip from Buenos Aires leads to Tigre, a pretty town on an island in the Paraná Delta, which is only 30 km away.
The main activities take place at the ferry station (the Estación Fluvial) on the river. From there you can go on boat trips on the waterways of the Paraná Delta. The boats also stop for walks on the trails of some islands.
There is pure adrenaline in one of the largest amusement parks in Latin America, the Parque de la Costa, Vivanco 1509 (Tel: (011) 40 02 60 00. Internet: www.parquedelacosta.com.ar).
Just a few blocks from the train station is the daily open Puerto de Frutos (fruit and vegetable market), which is now a market for handicraft products. Trains run regularly from the Buenos Aires Retiro station (Linea Miter) and the journey takes 45 minutes. If you prefer a scenic train route, change at Olivos and take the Tren de la Costa (Tel: (011) 40 02 60 00, Internet: www.trendelacosta.com.ar).
More information is available from the Tourist Office of Tigre, Calle Miter 305, (Tel: (011) 45 12 44 00. Internet: www.tigre.gov.ar).
Travel Line Argentina and other tour operators offer full-day trips to Tigre and the Paraná Delta.
Tel: 0800 999 28 38
Website: http://www.bue.gov.ar
