La Poesía – A Great Place to Read, Drink and Relax
With its shelves stacked with books, soda bottles and photographs from years past, La Poesía is a bar beautiful enough to truly deserve its name.
With its shelves stacked with books, soda bottles and photographs from years past, La Poesía is a bar beautiful enough to truly deserve its name.
I'll remember Roger Yrurtia for two things. One: for having a last name so ridiculously intimidating that I won't even try to pronounce it. And, two: for his gorgeous sculpture called Canto al Trabajo ("Song to Work").
The biggest park in San Telmo is Lezama, a giant green hill which fills up on weekends with sun-bathers, mate drinkers and chess players, along with some market stands. The park also is home to the Museo Histórico Nacional.
Occupying a good chunk of the block sketched out by Estados Unidos, Defensa, Carlos Calvo and Bolivar, the Mercado de San Telmo is a place which locals and tourists visit in almost equal numbers. The latter to buy antiques and souvenirs, the former for their day-to-day groceries.
There's no reason to leave Buenos Aires to experience the different cultures of the world. So many people and cultures from all around the globe have established a strong presence here... the Bolivian neighborhoods of Liniers, Chinatown in Belgrano, the Italian heritage in La Boca, and Once with its Jewish population are just some of them. There's even a Valencian community which celebrates Fallas in Buenos Aires!
A green oasis on the eastern end of the big city, the ecological reserve of the Costanera Sur offers an escape from the humdrum of daily life. Walking along of the reserve's paths, through wild growing pampas grass, it's difficult to believe that this is still Buenos Aires.
We wrote about the San Telmo Loft in a previous post, but we also wanted to highlight another apartment which Angela and John offer, for vacations or short term rentals. The Depto, on Calle Defensa.
On any day of the week, San Telmo is the best spot in Buenos Aires to go antiques-hunting. Dealers hawk everything from chandeliers to ancient books in shops which blanket the neighborhood. But the Sunday antiques market in Plaza Dorrego has become a phenomenon; all San Telmo comes out to party along with thousands of visitors in a celebration of curbside capitalism.
San Telmo is at no loss for great restaurants, and we recently stumbled upon another: Caseros, on the street of the same name, near Parque Lezama.
Our favorite mode of transportation in Buenos Aires is the bus. But we already mentioned that. This weekend, we took a late ride home on the #64, after an evening exploring Palermo Soho.