Following in the Footsteps of Evita Peron! More Sightseeing in Bewitching Buenos Aires!

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Buenos Aires

Following in the Footsteps of Evita Peron! More Sightseeing in Bewitching Buenos Aires!

  Buenos Dias from Buenos Aires!

From among the many impressions we gathered today, Recotta Cemetery was a real stand-out.  No wonder it is the star attraction of Buenos Aires. But first, brekkie...

Waking at 8.00 (Llew) as I was up much earlier (about 6.00am) we got ourselves quickly organized for our day on the town. There is so much to see and do in this city that there is little time to lose.

  Breakfast in the hotel was a generous affair. Careful not to overeat while making sure we fueled up well for the day, the two of us started with muesli with strawberry yogurt and requested decaf Americanos which were brought to our table. We followed up with scrambled eggs with bacon and sausage and left to start our exploration of the city. A few more days of these breakfasts and I shall have to go on a diet again.

Reaching out for Evita Peron at Recolleta Cemetery:

   Recolleta Cemetery is only a few blocks away from our hotel—so I made up a sort of itinerary that I thought we could follow for the day and we headed off there.

The Cemetery is a real gem of a place. It dates from the early -1800s and was created to house the mortal remains of the rich and famous of the city. It is a vast space surrounded by high red brick walls and fancy gas-lighting. The tops of the burial vaults peak out from over the walls and offer tantalizing glimpses of angels with wide wing spans that give indication of what one can expect to see within.

    Very shortly, I realized that this Cemetery is built in the same style as some of Europe’s best-known burial spots: think Brampton or Highgate Cemeteries in London or Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris for you are in the same ballpark. The difference in London is that grand family vaults line a few of the ‘streets’ in the cemetery as many of the deceased occupy just one little plot that is indicated with a funerary monument (usually a cross). Here, the entire place is made up of ‘streets’ that radiate from a central monument. There are no burial plots—just burial vaults here (all are family owned and occupied). Unlike Highgate in London where there are many notable graves to visit (George Eliot, Karl Marx) or Pere Lachaise in Paris (Jim Morrison, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir), here the only really notable figure is Eva Peron who is buried in her family vault as she was born a Duarte.

     Don’t expect to find, as we did, a grand monument to mark her burial spot. It is actually hidden in a narrow side street because although she was given a grand state burial (and we saw video clips of this affair in her museum that we visited next), her modest family claimed her body and buried it with their own members. Most visitors make a beeline for this spot which is well-known to all the attendants.

However, the real jewels of this Cemetery can be found all around in the magnificent Victorian mortuary sculpture with its exquisite details. The vaults themselves are lined with marble cladding in white or in black basalt. The entrances to them are made of elaborate wrought-iron gates. Ornamentation in the form of towering sculpture is profuse—there are angels, veiled women, mourning muses at the foot of the monuments of the well-heeled, military memorabilia in the case of men who served in the fight for Independence from Spain (achieved in 1810 and made official in 1816), loads of metal plaques. We even caught sight of a monument that featured both a Jewish menorah as well as a crucifix above it. Most of the vaults are designed in Neo-Classical style but there were some in Baroque style with grand domes and decorative details in stained glass. One was covered with ivy and another was clad in rustic rough-hewn stone. In many cases, the doors were open and we could see the caskets piled on shelves one on top of the other. It was all quite fascinating indeed and I could not stop taking pictures. The place is impeccably clean, beautifully maintained and plantings of flowers and other greenery around the monuments is on-going.

     We spent more than an hour in this spot but one could easily spend an entire morning in this miniature city reading family names derived from the colonial era. We could not help thinking how wealthy these people might have been if they could afford to spend so much on funerary trappings. Indeed, it is a great place to visit and we felt fortunate that we were so well located to this spot in terms of our hotel.

    I suppose having received an introduction to Eva Peron, it was only natural that we should gravitate to the Museo Evita (Evita Museum) next.

Visiting the Museo Evita:

We took a bus (the 37) from Ave de las Heras to Lapridu from where we found the Evita Museum on foot just a few blocks ahead in what remains a very upscale part of downtown BA. Everywhere we were struck by the affluence of this city, the solidity and decorative nature of the Baroque buildings, the quality of the shops and the many coffee shops that dot it. We realized why so many of the Nazis headed to Argentina and to BA bringing their money with them to live anonymous lives with name and identity changes to enable them to stay in luxury as if in a European city. 

    The Museo Evita opened only at 11.00 am—so we had a few minutes’ wait before we entered. There is an entry fee but my Met Museum ID card got both Llew and me inside for free. The Museum is housed in a gorgeous villa or ‘pallazo’ as they are known which dates from the early 1900s. It is dedicated to keeping alive the memory of Argentina’s best-known First Lady who had such an impact on her nation and the world in the early to mid-20th century that Andrew Lloyd-Weber wrote a whole opera dedicated to immortalizing her contribution. 

I first became aware of this extraordinary woman on seeing the opera Evita many decades ago. The Museum filled me in on the details of her life through its many fascinating objects that actually belonged to her. So here is what I gathered: Born in a rather humble peasant family as Eva Duarte in 1895, she aspired towards stardom and made her way to BA. There, in keeping with the mass media of the moment, she attained stardom on the radio. Film was just arriving as a medium and she sought roles as an actress, getting the female lead role in a film called La Prodiga. However, when a really massive earthquake hit the San Juan province of the country, then Minister of Social Welfare, Juan Peron sought the help of celebrities to create relief projects. Eva Duarte was roped in to assist and met Peron for the first time. They were inseparable after that first meeting. Within a year they were married and devoted themselves to the uplift of the people. She was married by the time her one and only film was released. Eva started a foundation for local welfare called the Foundation Eva Peron that was aimed at helping children, the elderly, the sick, etc.She endeared herself fully to her people and was dubbed ‘Evita’ (meaning Little Bird because she was so petite). At the same time, as an actor, she knew how to play the crowds and used her beauty and glamour to mesmerize them. As a fashion icon, she had clothes designed for her by some of the leading fashionistas of the time such as Marcel Rochas and led dazzling tours around the country and the world to win over the people. One such tour was the Rainbow Tour which also took her and her husband to the Vatican for a private audience with the Pope. By the time she died, she was adored by one and all and was given a state burial that brought thousands to the streets to watch her funeral cortège pass by—an early precursor of Princes Diana, if you will. 

    The museum houses a great deal of memorabilia that actually belonged to her—there are her dresses accompanied by pictures of her actually wearing them, hand bags, shoes, gloves and other accessories. There are jeweled accessories too. Video clips play short sequences that show her at her best. There are also editions of her own autobiography, The Reason for my Life in several languages. Portraits of her wearing a black dress with a rose in her lapel are iconic and dot the space. It does not take long to walk from one gallery to the next—each of which is carved from the beautiful spacious rooms of a manor that resembles a castle. There is a garden room in the center of it whose walls are covered with ceramic tiles, an overhanging balcony, beautiful ceramic tiled floor. Outside too, the manor is visually striking. It is wonderful to see how well these grand buildings are being put to public use for they enable the public to get a glimpse into the ultra-wealthy lifestyle of the privileged in that era. 

On to the Japanese Garden:

After over-dosing on Evita, it perhaps made sense that we should get some air in a space that is most unusual—a Japanese Garden in the heart of BA. Following our map, we walked about ten blocks north to get to one of the open green spaces that are so plentiful in this city and that remain its lungs. 

  The Japanese Garden is vast (unlike the small Kyoto Garden in Holland Park in London) and sprawls through the urban landscape with some incongruity. It is punctuated with all the motifs of a typical garden of its kind: lipstick red bow bridges across a massive pond that is  filled with massive koi (Chinese goldfish), wind chimes, a bell with an accompanying bamboo gong, loads of azaleas that must be stunning in the spring, lots of miniature Japanese maple trees that are tinged golden in this autumnal season, speakers that play soft and very lilting traditional Japanese music and a vast pavilion at one end. There are lots of bushes that are topiaried into perfect orbs as well as the striking centerpiece of the garden—the sort of monument that we had seen at Miyajima in Japan—the red sculpture against which most visitors posed for pictures. 

After we had rested ourselves adequately (because our feet were already protesting by this point), we left the lovely tranquil garden and went on to the next port of call—the National Museum of Decorative Arts.

Exploring the National Museum of Decorative Arts:

I have to say that we are really lucking out with the weather. It is fall here in the Southern Hemisphere and there is a decidedly delightful nip in the air which makes it perfect for long walks in this absolutely visually glorious city. However, it is also a widely spread out city and not really a walking haven as it runs in East-West direction across a vast span. To get to the next place, we hopped into a bus for a few blocks and when we arrived at the National Museum of Decorative Arts, we actually took a break on a bench outside in the beautiful little garden which is also occupied by a cafe. 

     The Museum was the mansion home of a Chilean millionaire called Errazruiz Alvear who married a woman called Josephina. As in the case of the Jacomart-Andre Museum in Paris which is a hotel particulier (mansion) that became the venue for displaying the collection of 18th century decorative arts accumulated by a power couple, so too here, the mansion houses the personal collection of a couple that amassed a brilliant miniature museum of objects d’art from the medieval period to the early 20th century. 

     We were given a floor plan for a museum that is free and open to the public. Inside, we were able to walk through rooms that were actually occupied by the couple and, later, by their son Mathias (known as Mato). The mansion was, in fact, designed and built to house their collection,. Hence, the main room is designed like a Great Hall in a medieval castle to display their collection of tapestries, sculptures in marble, alabaster and wood and paintings on wood including one by Lucas Cranach the Elder. There is a gallery-balcony that runs on three sides of the house (similar to what you find at Castle Le Clerc in England, scene of the shooting of the TV series Downton Abbey) and visitors can climb a floor up to encircle it and visit the personal bedrooms of the worthies who once occupied this space. Occasionally one comes across an Old Master (there are paintings by El Greco, for instance, by Manet and Corot) and in the main hall, there are excellent temporary exhibitions—we saw an interesting installation by Sylvia Guefin who has made white metallic hives that you can enter and in which you can pose. She called it ‘bones’ and in a distant way, it does resemble them. 

We saw most of the highlights of this incredible palace and went upstairs from one room to the next to take in a marble bathroom, bedrooms filled with carved teak furniture all done in the style of Louis XIV as the couple were quite enamored by the grandeur of the Palace of Versailles. There is even a music room in Rococo style in off white with gilded wooden highlights that depicts musical instruments and are strung with crystal chandeliers and lined with floor to ceiling mirrors in the manner of the great Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Also, this palace houses one of the best collection of miniature portraits in the world and had I more time and energy, I would, no doubt, have lingered over the vast variety of porcelain paintings set in the most decorative settings that line the walls and fill many vitrines in one of the galleries. 

Seriously... we were so glad we made this place a stop on our itinerary as it gave us a glimpse into some of the most noteworthy 19th century collector’s items but it also enabled us to understand how lavishly one could live if one had the kind of money that such folks had. 

It took us about an hour to see this place but one could easily spend a whole morning here, had one not been hard pressed for time. Apparently, BA had loads of such private mansions that are filled with such priceless items—-but this collection was bequeathed to the nation and has become a National Museum—which is why it features in most tourist guide books as a spot to be covered. We were predictably floored.

Off to MALBA (the Museum of Latin-American Art of Buenos Aires):

This museum is one of the best-known in the city and features in every itinerary. However, although we walked  several blocks to get to it, through neighborhoods that were extremely charming and sweetly tree-lined, we had a disappointment when we arrived as it is closed on Tuesdays. This means that we will have to schedule some other time to see its treasures.

Instead, we decided to make a long walk to the second-most renowned museum in the city.

The Museum of Fine Arts (Le Museo des Belles Artes):

Another long walk (all we seemed to be doing was walk and walk and walk today), past sprawling green parks filled with sculpture (including one of a huge metallic tulip flower), brought us to a massive Greek Neo-Classical Temple-like Building which housed official departments as we could tell from flags flying from its rooftop. 

Right opposite it is the Museum of Fine Arts which is also free and in which the likes of Renaissance painters such as Luca Giordano and Ricci share space with contemporary painters such as Picasso and Rothko. Sadly, by the time we arrived here, both Llew and I were really tired and hungry and hoped to get a bite and a rest in the Museum’s restaurant. Unfortunately, our hopes of sustenance were dashed as there was no cafe to be found. Nor did they even have a map or a floor plan. It was unbelievable. Hence, there was no way we could restrict ourselves to seeing any highlights. We would simply have to wander from one gallery to the next and take our pick of the offerings.

We used rest rooms and then began at the Medieval galleries where we saw several Masters before veering towards the Impressionists—of which there are many significant names and canvasses. However, we were simply too tired and hungry by the time and decided that it would make sense to keep both art galleries for tomorrow. A rest urgently beckoned and we thought it would be best to find a restaurant or a bus stop that would get us home—whichever we found first. 

Homeward Bound:

As it turned out, we came across a bus stop and found a bus that would get us towards our hotel (the No 93). We hopped off a little later and took a connecting bus to Ave de las Heras which dropped us off just a short block from our hotel. As we actually passed by a supermarket and were both simply starving by this time, we entered it and bought a pack of beef empanadas and a Caesar Salad and decided to make a meal of it in our room which we reached about 10 minutes later. With coffee which we brewed in our room, we had a meal that filled us up even though the snack was far from tasty. 

     A short rest and a nap followed and by 6.00 Pm, we were ready for some more exploration. I was keen to visit a huge mall called The Galleria Pacifico and that was where we were headed next.

Exploring the Galleria Pacifico:

The Galleria Pacifico is apparently modeled on the Gallerie Lafayette in Paris and is one of the more magnificent buildings of its kind. It was a very long walk of over an hour to get to it—the sad part about the location of our hotel is that although it is in the very affluent neighborhood of Recolleta, it is nowhere close to a metro station—in fact, it is about a half hour’s walk to the nearest metro station at Caballo. Since we are not familiar with the buses (and do not have a bus map), it is difficult to find our way in this far-flung metropolis. What seems like a walk of about 12 blocks tends to be a very tiring one hour trek as the blocks are long. 

     Still, it was worth while. One we got there, we were stunned by the interior decor of this vast indoor mall. The building is ornate to say the least and is filled with decorative details inside and out. The main ceiling is completely covered with murals by the Argentinian modern artist Carlos Alonso whose work is reminiscent of that of Diego Rivera. The entire glass ceiling is mirrored and covered with lights. Shops radiate through three floors offering an enticing variety of luxury goods—the type you see in most malls, of course, but ingeniously displayed in a great feat of merchandizing. I could not take my eyes of the shop windows which were poems in marketing. 

     After going through two floors, we reached the top floor which is a cultural center named after Jorge Luis Borges, the country’s best-known writer. It offers performances all year around from opera to tango. Meanwhile, down in the basement, there is a huge Food Court where most visitors linger. As we’d eaten a very late lunch, we contented ourselves with chocolate and tiramisu gelato that was served in a massive serving cup that took us forever to finish. 

  When we were done and had our fill of this institution to Mammon, we decided to take a cab back to our hotel as there was no way we could possibly walk back for another hour, given the immense amount of walking we had done today.

     We found a cab immediately and were in our hotel in ten minutes. Really beat by this point, it was all we could do to take our showers and then hunker down for the evening with TV, a bit of blogging, texting with friends, etc.

     What an amazing day of sightseeing we’d had! And there is still tomorrow that will enable us to see other parts of the city for I am free until 7.15 pm when we shall meet my NYU faculty colleagues after one whole year as we assemble to go out for a Welcome Dinner to El Querandi for a meal and an introduction to tango. 

    Until tomorrow...