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Recoleta
The city’s chic barrio. If you're looking for a bit of glitz and glamour look no further...
Images of Recoleta
Expect: The glitz and the glamour. Play with Buenos Aires' rich and famous.
Pack: Dress to Impress.
Recoleta
If Buenos Aires is the “Paris of the South”, Recoleta is without doubt its Champs Elysées. Avenida Alvear, the elegant central street, is lined with lavish French-style mansions where rents reach New York levels. This is traditionally the city’s chic barrio and although the recent rejuvenation of Palermo Viejo has ignited competition, most Porteños still see Recoleta as the glitziest part of Buenos Aires. Here you will find the world famous Alvear Palace Hotel, a source of immense civic pride and a lasting reminder of Buenos Aires’ affluent past. Recoleta is also home to some of the city’s best shopping and is the place to go if you’re looking for the big designer brands. The gorgeous Patio Bullrich is one of the most exclusive shopping centres in South America and its luxurious marble floor is graced by top-end boutiques such as Trosman, Versace and Jazmin Chebar.
Recoleta, however, is undoubtedly most famous for its cemetery. Remodelled in 1881 by the Italian architect Juan Antonio Buschiazzo, this most opulent of resting places stands proudly in the centre of the barrio. As you enter the grand gates the words “Rest in Peace” are inscribed in Latin high above your head. Surrounded by sleepless nightclubs, expensive high-rise apartments and classy boutiques this reads as some kind of perverse joke.
A remarkably exclusive acre, wandering its eerie maze of narrow lanes gazing upon the glorious tombs, is a stroll through the country’s dramatic history. Here separate generations of former presidents, revered statesmen and acclaimed poets share eternity. Yet most visitors are drawn magnetically to an unexceptional, glossy, black tomb where a woman whose prominence and status transcended any of her neighbours. Eva Peron’s body lies in the neat Duarte family crypt. This view of her grave, however, serves more to confirm the continuing health of her myth than as a reminder of her, now distant, death. A continuous stream of visitors, and the rising sound of clicking cameras, will lead you to the tender array of fresh flowers and polished plaques. Take a photo and move on, someone behind you is waiting.
Porteños have long come to terms with the bizarre and fantastical feel of Recoleta, where the rich, dead and alive, ‘live’ side by side. For a touch of the truly surreal, head to the Sahara nightclub opposite the cemetery's main entrance. Make sure you're still standing by dawn and head to the balcony on the third floor. There, watch the sunrise over the cemetery, sipping your fernet and coke, with the melodic tide of heavy house washing over you.
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