Page 76 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Argentina

74  BUENOS AIRES AREA B Y AREA

q Café Tortoni
Ave de Mayo 825. City Map 3 D5.
Tel (011) 4342-4328.  Piedras.
Open 8:30am−10:30pm daily.
Closed 25 Dec & 1 Jan. Academia
Nacional del Tango: Ave de Mayo
833. Tel (011) 4345-6967.
Open 2:30–7:30pm Mon–Fri.
∑ cafetortoni.com.ar
Opened in 1858, Café Tortoni
is named after a bohemian
drinking den on the famous
Boulevard des Italiens in Paris
and is probably the oldest and A quiet evening outside the brightly lit Teatro Avenida
grandest café in the city. At
the end of the 19th cen tury, operate on a drop-in basis. and the number of Spanish
its basement was a popu lar The Academia is home to a tapas bars and restaurants that
meeting place for La Peña, a self-styled World Tango lie on or just off the avenue.
group of local writers and artists Museum that opens daily. Among the Teatro Avenida’s
led by the painter Benito many past glories was a run of
Quinquela Martín. Soon many plays by Federico García Lorca,
of the city’s great est young w Teatro Avenida who lived at Avenida de Mayo
talents, includ ing Jorge Luis Ave de Mayo 1220. City Map 3 D5. 1152 between 1933 and 1934.
Borges, Roberto Arlt, and Tel (011) 4381-0662.  Lima.
Alfonsina Storni, as well as Open 1–8pm daily.
visitors such as Federico García e Palacio Barolo
Lorca and Luigi Pirandello, were If it were not for the preemin- Ave de Mayo 1370. City Map 3 D5.
seen nursing a coffee at Tortoni. ence of the Teatro Colón (see Tel (011) 4381-2425.  Saenz Peña.
A corner of the café, called the pp78–9), this beautiful theater, 8 4, 5, 6, & 7pm Mon & Thu. & 7
Rincón de los Poetas (Poet’s reopened in 1994 after almost ∑ pbarolo.com.ar
Corner), harks back to those being destroyed by a fire,
days. Tango legend Carlos would get the attention it Incorporating elements of
Gardel also performed here, deserves. Built along French Dante’s Divine Comedy, the
and the café continues to host beaux-arts lines, with Italianate romantic, Neo-Gothic Palacio
tango and jazz con certs. elements, the theater has a Barolo was built by architect
Statesmen and visiting digni- magnificent entrance. Mario Palanti. He was
taries such as King Juan Carlos The theater opened in 1908 commissioned by Luigi Barolo
of Spain and Hillary Clinton with a play by Lope de Vega. – a great admirer of Dante
have also stopped by. This initiated a steady tradition Alighieri – who arrived from
The first floor is occupied by of performing Spanish zarzuela his native Italy in 1890 and
the Academia Nacional del (Spanish operetta) works, in made money cultivating and
Tango, which has a research keeping with the Avenida de spinning cotton in the
library for tango scholars. Mayo’s status as Buenos Aires’s northern prov ince of Chaco.
There is also a schedule of “most Spanish” street – both in In 1919, work began on this
dance classes held here. The terms of the architecture, which grand 22-story building. It is
classes cover all levels and copies that of the Old World, 328 ft (100 m) high, reflecting
the 100 cantos of the Divine
Comedy, while nine literary
citations carved at the entrance
hall echo the nine infernal
hierarchies. The first 14 floors
of the Palacio are Purgatory,
while the heavens above are
crowned by a spectacular
domed lighthouse. The
number of offices on each floor
equals the stanzas that the
cantos contain. Some of the
details in the building are still
waiting to be decoded, but this
cryptic quality is perhaps what
makes the edifice a true
A lively tango show at the landmark Café Tortoni homage to Dante.
For hotels and restaurants in this area see p278 and p288

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