The bad news: unless you live in Brazil, Buenos Aires is far away. The good news: learning Spanish in Buenos Aires is awesome. Why?
You can say that Buenos Aires was a city built in Parisian style by Italian immigrants who then decided to speak Spanish. It is a great gateway to explore both Argentina and the amazing continent of South America with excellent connections from the two city airports. However, you may not want to leave at all.
Buenos Aires is the second largest city in South America after Sao Paulo with some 12 million people living in the metropolitan area. It has seen a huge surge in tourism from Europe and North America in the last ten years which brought extra flair and choice to restaurants, shops and nightlife. It is also generally speaking a very safe city to travel to but standard precautions apply: always know where you are going and especially as a woman, travel with others at night.
The city has many different areas with their own distinct feel: the Microcentro is where the main government buildings are located as well as the Florida shopping street and the Obelisk. It does go very quiet at night though as it is not a very residential area.
Recoleta is known for its beautiful cemetery where you’ll find the grave of Argentina’s heroine Eva “Evita” Peron as well as enough other beautiful graves of the rich and famous. The area is the poshest in the city and offers wide avenues, lively terraces, great (albeit expensive) shopping and great food. It’s the mini Paris of Buenos Aires.
San Telmo is an area best known for its Sunday market and quirky small shops in the small cobbled streets. It may not be the safest area at night but it is definitely fun to visit during the day.
La Boca is partially a tourist trap but a lovely one at that and therefore on the to-do list. It is the area where Italian immigrants from Napels settled in large numbers over a hundred years ago and used paint from the shipyards nearby to paint their houses in bright colours. The famous Boca Juniors football club is to be found here.
And last, but not least, our Spanish language school in Buenos Aires is located in Palermo. This is together with Recoleta the safest, nicest neigbourhood of Buenos Aires with a grid like street system that makes navigating easy. Palermo is huge so different names are given to different areas such as Palermo Hollywood and Palermo Soho. Almost all of our host families are to be found in this area.
It is almost impossible to avoid Tango dancers and music when you walk around Buenos Aires and that is a good thing. Sensual to the fingertips, this is one of those beautiful dances that leaves you mesmerized. We work with an excellent dance academy in the Belgrano neighbourhood (20 minutes away by underground from the school) where you can enjoy a Spanish + Tango course for as many weeks as you want.
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