There are 497 blog posts for you to enjoy.
Córdoba – A City Founded by Disobedience
October 18, 2026
Córdoba, Argentina, population of around 1,500,000, sits in central Argentina. The metropolitan area has around 1,650,000 people. It is historically known as "La Docta" or "The City of Bells."
Growing Pains
Córdoba was founded by Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera, from Seville, Spain, in July 1573, as a Spanish settlement that would serve as a refuge from the indigenous people, allowing the Spaniards to move and trade freely along the route between the silver mines of the Andes and the Río de la Plata. Cabrera had actually been ordered by the Viceroy of Peru to found a city much farther north, but he chose this fertile valley on the Suquía River instead and named it after his wife's hometown in Andalusia. The disobedience cost him his life. His successor as governor had him tried for insubordination, and he was executed in 1574, barely a year after founding the city.
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Santa Fe: The Cathedral That Never Was, and Other Santa Fe Leftovers
October 14, 2026
Santa Fe, Argentina, population of about 405,000, the metropolitan area has around 532,000. Those are surprisingly large numbers, the city center is not huge and is easily walkable. One big difference here from the other cities of Argentina - far fewer trees. Most cities and towns in Argentina have sidewalks lined with trees. Here, the downtown has trees only in the plazas. The residential neighborhoods have quite a few tree-lined streets, though. This town has a long railroad history, and you can see many pics in the photo album.
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Buenos Aires: Two Days in the Paris of America
October 10, 2026
I arrived in Buenos Aires (Santa María del Buen Aire) via the ferry from Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. Buenos Aires is a big city of about 13.4 million. Within that greater metropolitan area is the "smaller" city of Buenos Aires, with about 3.1 million. When I left the ferry terminal and walked to the city center I was rather disappointed in what I walked through. That part of the city is nothing special. Then, as I continued, I passed through some of the historic district, again a bit disappointing - dirty, too many people sleeping on sidewalks. Eventually, I arrived in the city center and things changed a lot - the city became what I expected of BA - very old, clean, and interesting. The city center is loaded with very old buildings and I found to be more interesting than the official historic district. NOTE: You will find people here speak with the Rioplatense accent. This is an accent of Spanish common throughout the greater Buenos Aires area and also heard in Uruguay. If you come across a person with a thick accent, there's a good chance you won't understand them, I sure don't. It's almost as if they're sticking an 'sh' or 'zh' sound between every other syllable. Don't expect to find many who speak a "clean" Spanish, and even fewer who speak English or any other language. I did come across a young woman who speaks very good English, she works in a store that sells wine and other alcohol, but mostly wine. I didn't buy any, and we chatted for a while. I also came across a couple of restaurant servers who attempted to use English, but they were just individual words, not full sentences.
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Colonia del Sacramento: Walls, Lighthouses and a Bullring
October 6, 2026
Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, has a population of about 33,000. It sits a couple of hours west of Montevideo. The town is very historic. The town's historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's a small town sitting at the estuary where the Río de la Plata (the River Plate or the Plate River) dumps into the Atlantic Ocean. Google Maps has it labeled incorrectly at this part of the river. Also, this is where you cross from Uruguay to Argentina by ferry.
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Montevideo: A City Full of Surprises
October 2, 2026
One of the best things about traveling without a rigid itinerary is that a city can surprise you. You arrive with a general idea of what to expect, and then you start walking. Before long, you discover that the city you imagined and the city you're actually seeing aren't quite the same thing.
Montevideo has surprised me several times.
The first surprise is the architecture. I expected old buildings in Ciudad Vieja, some newer buildings in the downtown area, and the usual mixture that comes with a city that has been around for a few centuries. What I didn't expect was the sheer variety. Montevideo's architecture reflects different periods and the influence of the many immigrant populations that helped shape the city. The city's own tourism material points out that the architecture ranges from colonial and neoclassical to Neogothic, modernist, eclectic, and Art Deco. Montevideo also has one of the largest concentrations of Art Deco architecture in the world.
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