Page 86 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Argentina

84  BUENOS AIRES AREA B Y AREA

2 El Zanjón and
Casa Mínima
Defensa 755. City Map 1 E1. Tel (011)
4361-3002. @ 24, 29, 130, 152.
Open only guided tours. & 8 El
Zanjón: noon, 2pm, & 3pm Mon–Fri
(in English), 1–6pm (every 20 mins)
Sun; Casa Mínima: 4pm Fri (call in
advance). ∑ elzanjon.com.ar
El Zanjón is a restored residence
where the living conditions of
urban Argentinians can be
traced for over three centuries.
It is an eclectic mix of an 1830s
façade, 18th-century fixtures
The balcony terrace of a lively café overlooking Plaza Dorrego and fittings, and even older
inner walls. During colonial
1 Plaza Dorrego fittings of these now decaying times, a rivulet known as
properties. Bargains are few El Zanjón de Granados flowed
Cnr Defensa & Humberto 1°. City
Map 1 E1. @ 24, 29, 126, 130, 152. and far between but keep a through this spot and was used
look out for old vinyl records, to remove sewage. French tiles,
A lively and bustling area, Plaza antique mates, gramo phone African pipes, English china,
Dorrego is popu lar with visitors players, old ticket machines and other objects have all been
wishing to take time from the city’s buses, the found on the site, indicating the
out from walking stylish fedora-style funyi cosmopolitan traffic that
around the city. It is an hats worn by male tango passed through here.
ideal place to while dancers, and examples A two-minute walk away,
away time, lounging of fileteado, the colorful on Pasaje San Lorenzo, is Casa
over a beer or coffee. indigenous porteño art Mínima (Minimal House), an
Located in the heart form (see p73). example of the only truly
of the San Telmo Plaza Dorrego is also one indigenous architectural style
barrio, this small of the few places in the to come out of Buenos Aires,
cobblestoned plaza city, weather per mit ting, the casa chorizo (sausage
was formerly the station to see infor mal open-air house). These are long, thin
for carriages and carts tango dancing in which dwellings with a narrow
passing through the tourists and locals frontage and a corri dor that
city and is the oldest participate. The area stretches about half a block
city square after Plaza Tango street may some times feel deep. The Casa Mínima was
de Mayo. Sur rounded performers like a tourist-trap, but built in the 1880s by freed
by beautiful two-storied it is popular with bohemian slaves on a tiny parcel of land
buildings, many of which porteños and, out of season, granted to them by a bene-
have been converted into has a genuinely romantic air. volent master.
bars, restaurants, and souvenir
shops, it is a lively hub for
locals and tourists alike. On
weekdays, cafés set up tables
in the plaza for people to
drink and play cards or chess.
On the weekends, the space
is taken over by a popular
antiques and bric-a-brac
market, the Feria de San
Pedro Telmo (see p124),
which claims to be the oldest
in the city. It is ideal for
browsing although it can
get rather crowded.
The houses around Plaza
Dorrego and on the neigh-
boring streets were once the
homes of patrician families,
and many of the antiques on
sale are the former fixtures and The narrow frontage of the Casa Mínima
For hotels and restaurants in this area see p278 and pp288–9

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