This part is going to sound fancy and definitely not our usual vacation activity but: We were invited to visit the Palacio Bosch , where the family of the U. Ambassador to Argentina lives or lived; their tour was just wrapping up. I loved learning about the history of the palace you can read more here and even a bit about how ambassadorship works in different countries, a cool social studies lesson for the kids too.
The palace is right near the Palermo Soho neighborhood, which we found really charming and were delighted to find several shops still open, even at 5pm on Christmas Eve. Predictably, my children only wanted to go to the hotel pool after that, which was at least a stunning one under a glass roof on the top floor. We had dinner at the hotel; the Christmas buffet had come recommended but we found it β¦ passable. Our friends arrived this morning and we took to wandering around the mostly empty city.
We weaved a bit into the large park for playgrounds, passing the opera house, and more. We had a great meal and were also sent back to the hotel with one of their Babkatone , a delicious mash-up of a babka and panettone. Thank you for the treat! Shaped like a little city, La Recoleta Cemetery was even cooler to visit than I expected, with uniquely designed vaults, mausoleums and graves from all sorts of famous people and former presidents.
More wandering, more playgrounds, and we stopped into El Ateneo Grand Splendid , an eye-popping bookshop in an old theater. The photo here shows a different, equally cool, rubber tree. We had a lunch of milanese, gambas al ajillo, heirloom tomato salads the bliss of traveling to the land of summer, see also this Neruda poem a nice person sent me on the topic , and big fat batons of french fries at El Preferido de Palermo , a sunny restaurant from Pablo Rivero, the restaurateur who owns Don Julio.
Definitely reserve ahead of time, as early as you can. Gelato from the highly recommended Rapanui Palermo location did not disappoint. They were absolutely perfect. Wandered over to buy soccer sorry, football gear at La Bombonera then to La Boca , the colorful neighborhood where tango is said to have originated.
