Day 11 - The Grand Finale

Day 11 – More BA – Museums and Food

Today is the last day in Argentina and SA. We had a casual morning planned with some walking to a major city park area where there are museums etc. Then we were planned for a food tour in the late afternoon and early evening before boarding our 11:59pm flight back to the US.

It was another spectacular respite from the heat with temperatures in the mid-70s and a light breeze. Not a cloud in the sky. I realized that I had not taken a picture of the Algodon Mansion and the quaint Montevideo Street where it was located. See below.

  

For breakfast, Steve ordered a waffle, thinking it would be a Belgian waffle (with all the Argentinian penchant for being European and all that). Of course, in different parts of the world the same word/name can be quite different. My waffles arrived, and they were two very dense buckwheat squares that were more like bread – and dense bread – than a light fluffy waffle as we know it. Furthermore, it was served with some sort of honey + sugar concoction rather than syrup. It was very, very sweet! AND, there was a large dollop of something like chocolate mousse on it. Well, I had to be thankful for what I had to eat, but it wasn’t waffles.

A waffle?

We got real cultured and went to the BA Fine Arts Museum. It is not a big place, but they have some nice holdings – particularly Rodin (the sculptor of The Thinker) and some Impressionist paintings, including Manet, Monet and van Gogh.

The beautiful downtown parks where
some of the museums are. 

Sculpture by Rodin

None other than van Gogh

  

The famous Clause Monet

Next we were off to the Museum of Decorative Arts, which is to say that a ridiculously wealthy man built a ridiculously large mansion and furnished it with ridiculously expensive stuff back around 1905. When the man died, somehow, no one in his family could afford to care for it and the country took over the building (I am sketchy on the details), and left it as it was. So, to this day it is like walking back in time to see how a ridiculously wealthy person lived in the early 1900’s … complete with sculptures, paintings, murels and luxurious furniture. We also took a brief respite in the garden that is now an outdoor restaurant (again – what an incredibly beautiful day). I will just let some pictures tell the story.

The entry way with a more than life size marble sculpture.

The Dining Room - table for 16 just in case the in-laws come over.

The Family Room from the balcony on the second floor.

Lunch in the garden area outside the mansion / Museum.

Our afternoon was with Grisel (not Tom Brady’s wife who is Giselle) to get some sampling of Argentinian food. I am not going to lie – what we expected and what we got were two very different things. I will leave out the details and only say that we got some empanadas and chudi pan (chorizo sandwich) at some local places. Good stuff in very informal settings – down some side streets and into some local market areas. We wandered around the city and saw a few more interesting sites. For example, the world’s second-best book store (according to some World Bookstore Rating Agency) that was converted from an old theater. Of course, the world’s #1 bookstore in is Europe (Amsterdam) and the Argentinians are grumbling about being second to Europe … again. We visited some coffee shops (again, very much in the style of European coffee shops) that are quite different than the US. First, they are very big – as big or bigger than a restaurant – and second you are waited on by guys (yes, always guys) wearing crisp white shirts with bowties and cuffed sleeves. We finished with some gelato from a store called Rapanui. I only say this because you can find Freddo and Volta gelato stores all over the city, but Rapanui has them beat hands down (although not as good as Greater’s).

Empanadas at the San Telmo Market with our tour guide Grisel.

The "back alley" restaurant with good grilled food.
Chudi pan (Chudi is short for chorizo and pan = bread).

The theater turned into a remarkable book store.
A panoramic view of the main room/floor.

It was back to the hotel at 7:30 for a quick shower (they let us keep our rooms!) and the driver met us for transport to the airport at 8:30pm. The entire return trip was uneventful … no traffic in BA, check-in at the American Airlines counter with Florencia was a breeze, business class tickets that allowed access to comfortable lounges, flights on time, … Our driver picked us up at the Indy airport, but neither of us had any cash for a tip, so Bob just gave the driver a kiss and all was good.