Day 232 - BsAs: City of book shops

After a sweet breakfast where M filled up on medialuna (basically croissants with a sweet glaze), alfahores (shortbread with sweet caramel filling, sometimes coated with chocolate), and coffee, we headed out for the day. Another overcast rainy day, but this time we were prepared, even with the rain it is much better walking and sight seeing weather than the heat of Sunday.

First stop was El Ateneo, a famous bookshop that was originally an old theatre. It is a beautiful building and very interesting with the balconies all being used to house books. K bought 3 novels in Spanish for $30, a bargain compared to books back home. BA has bookshops everywhere, very noticeable since they are so thin on the ground in Australia. We wandered around the famous Florida Street and had lunch by the river (some Argentinean delicacies - K had an empanada, M had ice cream!).

Dinner that evening was steak once more - we'll see how many steaks we can eat in a row before we need a change (not many Indian or Thai restaurants here), at the moment we're pretty happy with the national dishes of this country!

Day 231 - "Free" walking tour day

Buenos Aires - Icaro Suites

After enjoying the free walking tours in Europe, this morning we joined a large group to learn more about the history of Buenos Aires. The city of Monday was nothing like the Sunday city, incredibly noisy, lots of traffic and bustling with people. The weather had also changed, we had expected another very warm day and dressed accordingly, but instead the rain came down. This is the rainy season so hopefully we have learnt our lesson and won't venture out without an umbrella again. The walking tour was ok, maybe not the best we have been on, but still worth going on. We toured the central area of the city, visiting the various squares, monuments and other places of interest, getting a feel for Argentinian history and culture along the way.

At 5pm we joined the afternoon tour. As they explained it we would call it an evening tour but they do things differently in Argentina!. This tour covered an area on the edge of the city centre, starting near the Falklands War Memorial and then through some of the more affluent areas of the city with its old palaces, grand houses and embassies. On this tour the guide was excellent, she explained lots of political history and information about BsAs and its people, she was very informative and entertaining, a tour well worth taking. They work on a tips only basis and it is a good way to learn about the city you are visiting.

This evening we were up for a nice big Argentinean steak, we had plenty of restaurants to choose from close to our hotel.

Day 230 - Hop on, hop off, hop on, hop off

Buenos Aires - Icaro Suites

We woke up to a hot Sunday in Buenos Aires and decided to do something that in all our travels we had never done before - take one of those hop on, hop off double decker tourist buses. We first disembarked at Caminito in La Boca, the well known brightly painted section of town. It is quite a small area of only a couple of blocks and obviously all about the tourists. It was full of tourist shops, restaurants with tango dancers out the front and tourist stalls. It didn't take us long to decide we had seen enough and time to jump on the bus again, M tried to persuade K to demonstrate her tango skills but without success.

Next stop was the Puerto Madero which was a very new area quite like our Docklands in Melbourne - new buildings, expensive restaurants, and very quiet. After lunch and a long wait for the next bus we headed to Recoleta for our next stop. It was very busy with a weekend crafts market and by now the temperature had soared. After taking in the second oldest church in Buenos Aires we found the famous Recoleta cemetery - there aren't many cities in the world where the number one tourist attraction is the local cemetery! However this isn't any normal cemetery, as well as being the place where Eva Peron is buried it is a still working cemetery with amazing, massive, ornate mausoleums.

Then back on the bus to complete the circuit, this managed to take up the whole day. As it was Sunday the city was very quiet all day, nearly everything was closed and there was hardly any traffic. We had read that no one goes out for dinner before 8.30pm so we headed back to the hotel for a while, however jet lag caught up with us and the next thing we knew it was morning, that Argentinian steak will have to wait another night!

Day 229 - To a new continent

Dubai to Buenos Aires - Icaro Suites

The only thing that can be said about today is it is a very long trip! Getting out of bed at 4.30am in Dubai and reaching our hotel in Buenos Aires at 10.30pm equals 26 hours of traveling. Breaking the trip in Dubai was a good idea, it would have been tough traveling straight through without a stopover.

A side note regarding the map - we've only included destinations that are part of our holiday, so even though the map shows us going from Paris to Dubai, we really went Paris to home (via Abu Dhabi) to Dubai.

Day 228 - The final stretch begins

Dubai - Premier Inn

You may be wondering .... why hasn't this blog been updated for so long? (though we're sure you're not, after all only one person contacted us to find out why we stopped at Paris back in October!). Without going into too much detail, we unexpectedly had to head back home for a while, but we're now back into traveling mode to end our trip as originally planned by traveling to South America and the grand finale at Carnival in Rio.

We're going the long way round to and from Sth America via Dubai, with a short stopover to rest and do some sightseeing. We arrived in Dubai early Friday morning, had a few hours rest at our hotel then caught the metro in see the sights.

Dubai seems to be a city of malls - so that's where we headed first. First stop was Emirates Mall, a look around didn't reveal much of note - just another huge collections of shops really. The indoor skiing centre was interesting to look at from the outside, but we didn't think it was worth a visit inside.

We wanted to visit the beach and see the Burj Al Arab (the sail shaped building) so we left the mall and walked down towards the beach. It was another one of those deceptive map situations - it didn't look that far on the map, but ended up taking a while, fortunately it was a pleasant sunny day.

We made it to the entry gate of the building, but weren't allowed in as you need a reservation to eat there, so we walked further along to the public beach, where we saw a mix of girls in bikinis, and fully clothed people in muslim attire, quite a combination.

We caught a taxi from a nearby hotel back to the mall, hopped on the metro and headed to the Dubai Mall (site of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa). We spent a little while there, then decided to head to our next destination before it got too late. Getting off at a nearby metro stop, we managed to find our way through the very Indian neighbourhood to reach the very quiet Bastakiya district. By this time it was dark, so although we were a little dubious about entering as it seemed deserted, we found some beautifully lit buildings amongst the few open restuarants and stalls.

Back to the Dubai Mall for dinner, after which we saw the entertaining fountain show in the outdoor waterfront area, with Burj Khalifi in the background. Back on a very crowded metro to our hotel, to get some sleep before our early flight the next morning.