El Atenio Grand Splendid

If you love bookstores, one of the places you have to visit is Buenos Aires' El Atenio Grand Splendid. It is a fine, if not exceptional bookstore, in terms of inventory.  But in term of place, it is "una libraria unica en el mundo," that is, located in a beautifully preserved 19th century theatre.

Kids' books, games, etc.

Cafe

One of many reading rooms

Increible!

Museo Belles Artes

We should have gone to one of BA's museums of Latin American art. That would have entailed knowing something about Latin American Art, however, and, alas, we know very little, and thus would have gained very little in a visit. Next time we will do better. (And we're increasingly thinking, after just a few days, there will be a next time here). In any case, we visited the Museo Belles Artes, which features quite a bit of the European art we have come to know fairly well. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, and the place was packed.

BA's Museo Belles Artes

Not a Rembrandt self-portrait; looks like his second wife

A Pietro Pablo study (Rubens)

A Cranach!

Another Rubens

A Zuberan; we like pointy hats from the
Inquisition (nobody expects the Spanish
Inquisition!)

Domenikos Theotokopolos; the Greek

Gustave Courbet, Orange Sea

The first of several Goyas

We'll be in Prado in a few months

A The Kiss in marble

More Goya

Another Goya, featuring a papal fly-by

Eugene Boudin, The River at Portrieux

Manet, The Nymph Surprised

I was hoping to make art history by identifying
a lost Fragonard, but it was only a Fantin-Latour

Monet, on the Seine

An early Toulouse-Lautrec

Never, ever miss a Berthe Morisot

Or a pretty Renoir

Or a Gauguin

Interesting place, and a reminder of how young
this city is

El Caminito

Fortified by our lunch, we ventured on into La Boca, another old barrio, to see El Caminito, a neighborhood of brightly painted and corrugated buildings, something of an artist colony, now something of a tourist trap. BA's answer to Pigeon Forge, we thought.

Haven't see this sort of thing since Istanbul; of course, in the
US people live in containers this size

Approaching El Caminito

There

Tango on display

Monument to firemen

Vicki showing her devotion (putting a coin in
the box); we're still waiting to hear how we can
use the plenary dispensations we earned at
St. Pierre's church in Antakya (Antioch); see
http://roadeveron.blogspot.com.ar/2010/10/
another-day-another-cave-st-pierres-in.html

Having gotten the gist, we walked on to the harbor

And took a taxi across town, in the rain

Past more of impressive BA...