We continued the bus tour today first stopping at Recoleta where the BA old money lives as the city's wealthiest citizens relocated here after San Telmo became unliveable after yellow fever hit there in 1871. This is BA's most Parisian quarter, featuring wide tree-lined avenues and landscaped parks.
Cemetario de la Recoleta is the final resting place of Eva Peron (among others), wife of the President and of course, the subject of the musical Evita. The cemetary is interesting when viewed in contrast to Australian cemetaries which have very few crypts.
Rich families in Recoleta believed God lived in this cemetary and hence paid large sums of money to secure land in this cemetary and erect small granite or marble houses to entomb their loved ones.
The families continue to pay cleaners (maids?) to keep the crypts in good order. That sounds a little spooky dusting around a coffin but it just goes to show everyone has a price.
When then moved on to La Boca, which is where working class Italian immigrants settled around the port area in the mid-19th century. They often borrowed ship paint to decorate their ramshackle houses and while some resident's houses still reflect this heritage, you don't need to travel far before you realise it's still a relatively poor neighbourhood.
Apart from the usual array of public buildings such as art galleries, universities, ministeries and the large number of parks with statues, one interesting sculpture was this,
Floralis Generica which looks like a giant chrome flower. The unique thing about this sculpture is that each of the 6 petals close at night due to electic motors in each petal.
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