Upon exiting the arrival area of the airport we were greeted by two drivers (one for the luggage and one for us) to take us to our hotel. As I am a last minute person and very picky about hotel accommodations (those two things don't usually go well together), I booked our hotel as our plane was touching down in Bs. As., yes, you read that right, I booked our hotel (and car service) as we were LANDING.
We decided to stay at the Palacio Duhau, a Park Hyatt as the Four Seasons was unavailable. The hotel is located in a tony section of Recoleta, the are where the term "the Paris of South America" originated. I have never stayed at a Hyatt and have always thought of them to be similar to the seedy hotels that one sees next to an airport or a convention center (The Park Hyatt Vendome notwithstanding), but boy was I wrong. After driving for about 45 minutes we arrived at the hotel, and thankfully, it far exceeded all of our expectations. It is located on a street very similar to Madison Avenue in the 60's and 70's on the UES in NYC. We were ushered to the "palacio" side of the hotel (a intimate side of the hotel which was the original palace and now houses 22 suites replete with butler service and a personal concierge) and had a quick check in. After getting our keys we went to our room (which, by the way, was gorgeous, very large, and very lavish) and got ready to head out to lunch.
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| The palace side and entrance of the Palacio Duhau on famed Avenida Alvear. |
Per the recommendation of our very helpful concierge, we decided to try Fervor, a typical Argentinian parilla (steakhouse). We were met with copious amounts of grilled seafood, beautiful cuts of steak, grilled vegetables, delicious glasses of Malbec and homemade ice cream for dessert. We were very happy with our lunch and even happier at how far the dollar goes here (more on that later).
After lunch my husby had to finish closing out the market, sooo I decided to wander around the Recoleta area and of course, get my hair done. I found a suitable looking salon and had an excellent blow dry and was blown away (no pun intended) at how inexpensive it was compared to NYC (let's just say, about 1/4 of the cost).
Without going over every detail of the first week, I thought I would add some highlights and a list of the restaurants that we tried as well as a mini review of each.
Piergari-Recoleta -- excellent homemade pasta, fish and very well done.
Su Voce-Recoleta- good homemade pasta, non touristy,
La Cabana-Puerto Madero- excellent meat- all raised on their estancia outside of Bs. As.
Doppio Zero-Belgrano- eh.
Astrid and Gaston -Belgrano- excellent ceviche, great ambiance and extensive wine list--the location in Peru is ranked on Pelligrino's top 50.
We had decided before leaving on the trip that we would stay in a hotel until we could find a suitable rental in Bs. As. so my mission for the first few days was seeing apartments and getting to know different areas and decide where we would be happiest living. We settled on the Recoleta area as it is very central to may other barrios in Bs. As. as well as the fact that it is the most European of all the barrios and is known for its excellent restaurants and shops. We decided on a lovely little loft style rental due to its fabulous location, and large outdoor space. I was very surprised at the mish mash of architectural style here, there are many buildings that look like they came out of Miami beach in the 1980's and then there are gorgeous French style buildings from the 1920's-1930's and the super modern buildings (usually all within the same block) due to the fact that the city was not very organized in planning its construction and was a sort of free for all for a long time.
There are a surprising amount of high end design and furniture stores here as well as famous architects who do incredible work. The different barrios of the city have many different types of design with Palermo being the most modern and housing different areas within it such as Belgrano, Las Canitas, "Hollywood"-- for the TV and media in the area, "SOHO" -- similar to Soho in NYC, lots of shops, trendy restaurants, clubs etc. and my favorite part of Palermo, Palermo Chico ( bordering Recoleta and similar to Pacific Heights in San Francisco) Bel Air etc., very quiet and lovely.
J and I love how late restaurants are open here with the "prime" dinner reservation time being 10pm (similar to Europe)! People here generally eat lunch at around 1-2 and have a "tea time" around 5:30-6 with small sandwiches pastries and tea or coffee to tide them over until dinner. It is not uncommon to walk into a packed restaurant at 11pm with many people still being seated.
We are looking forward to taking intensive Spanish classes and tutoring so that we can brush up on our Spanish skills and become fluent in the near future. We were both surprised at how few people actually speak English here, unlike many European countries.
There are so many places that we are so looking forward to visiting in AR and Chile including:
Mendoza and Las Lenas
Santiago and Portillo
Salta
Iguazu Falls
Patagonia
-El Calafate
-El Chalten
-Bariloche
-Tierra del Fuego
-Ushuaia
and many other places throughout SA.
