Chasing Paris: A Recoleta and Retiro Walking Tour

Buenos Aires' Recoleta and Retiro neighborhoods were built to look like Paris itself. On this walking tour, you'll find out how a yellow fever epidemic pushed Buenos Aires' elite north, remaking these streets as a French-style showcase.

The tour starts at the Palacio Estrugamou, an apartment block built to resemble a single Parisian mansion, once home to tango icon Carlos Gardel. From there, you'll pass Casa Lucía Hotel, built by a shipping magnate to watch his own vessels dock, and Florería Atlántico, a flower shop concealing one of the world's top-ranked bars. You'll also reach the site of the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing, now a quiet memorial plaza.

Along Avenida Alvear, you'll pass the French and Brazilian Embassies, once private palaces built by immigrant fortunes, and hear how a 1930 economic crash toppled dozens more. You'll wander through Recoleta Cemetery, resting place of Eva Perón and twenty-six former presidents, and past the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar. The tour ends on a footbridge overlooking the Floralis Genérica, a giant steel flower whose petals open and close with the sun.

On this 60-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Cross Avenida 9 de Julio, the world's widest avenue, a two-stage crossing that's practically a local rite of passage
• Admire Plaza Cataluña's painted trompe l'oeil façade, a nod to Barcelona's Font de Canaletes fountain
• Step inside the Park Hyatt Recoleta, once the Duhau family's Patagonian wool fortune turned into a Château du Marais-style palace
• Pass the Scottish-style Residencia Maguire, the last private mansion still standing on Avenida Alvear
• Sip coffee at Café La Biela, a historic haunt of racing champions and writers
• Stand beneath the Gomero de Recoleta, an 18th-century fig tree propped up by a scrap-metal statue of Atlas
• Hear the eerie tale of Rufina Cambaceres, the socialite said to have been buried alive

By the time you reach the Floralis Genérica, you'll understand why Buenos Aires' attempt to become Paris turned into something entirely its own.