Top Things To Do in Buenos Aires

These are the most frequently visited locations in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1. Palacio Barolo
• Palacio Barolo is a landmark office building, located at 1370 Avenida de Mayo, in the neighborhood of Monserrat, Buenos Aires. It stood as Buenos Aires' tallest building for more than a decade until the construction of the Kavanagh Building in 1936. Its twin brother, Palacio Salvo, is a building designed and erected in Eclectic style, built by the same architect in Montevideo. The Palacio Barolo was designed in accordance with the cosmology of Dante's Divine Comedy, motivated by the architect's admiration for Alighieri. There are 22 floors, divided into three "sections". The basement and ground floor represent hell, floors 1-14 are purgatory, and 15-22 represent heaven. The building is 100 meters (330 feet) tall, one meter for each canto of the Divine Comedy. The lighthouse at the top of the building can be seen all the way in Montevideo, Uruguay. The owner planned to use only 3 floors, and to rent the rest.


2. Café Tortoni
• The Café Tortoni is a coffeehouse located at 825 Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires. First opened in 1858 by a French immigrant whose surname was Touan, it was named Tortoni after the Parisian café of the same name located on Boulevard des Italiens (where the elite of Parisian culture gathered in the 19th century). The café itself was inspired by Fin de siècle coffee houses. Café Tortoni was selected by UCityGuides as one of the ten most beautiful cafes in the world.


3. Estatua de Mafalda
• Mafalda is an Argentine comic strip written and drawn by cartoonist Quino. The strip features a six-year-old girl named Mafalda, who reflects the Argentine middle class and progressive youth, is concerned about humanity and world peace, and has an innocent but serious attitude toward problems. The comic strip ran from 1964 to 1973 and was very popular in Latin America, Europe, Quebec and Asia. Its popularity led to books and two animated cartoon series. Mafalda has been praised as masterful satire. In 2009, a life-sized statue of Mafalda was installed in front of Quino's old home in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires. In 2010, it was announced that the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, had sought and obtained permission to name or rename a street after Mafalda, as part of a project to establish a neighbourhood named after famous comic strips and bande dessinée characters. In 2014, a life-sized statue of Mafalda was installed in Campo de San Francisco, a park located in Oviedo, Principality of Asturias' capital (northern Spain), after the Princess of Asturias Awards was conferred to Quino, for the creation of Mafalda, in the category of Communications and Humanities.


4. Caminito
• Caminito ("little walkway" or "little path" in Spanish) is a street museum and a traditional alley, located in La Boca, a neighborhood of Buenos Aires. The place acquired cultural significance because it inspired the music for the famous tango "Caminito (1926)", composed by Juan de Dios Filiberto.


5. Teatro Colón
• The Teatro Colón (Columbus Theatre) is a historic opera house in Buenos Aires. It is considered one of the ten best opera houses in the world by National Geographic. According to a survey carried out by the acoustics expert Leo Beranek among leading international opera and orchestra directors, the Teatro Colón has the room with the best acoustics for opera and the second best for concerts in the world.


6. Plaza de Mayo
• The Plaza de Mayo (May Square) is a city square and the main foundational site of Buenos Aires. It was formed in 1884 after the demolition of the Recova building, unifying the city's Plaza Mayor and Plaza de Armas, by that time known as Plaza de la Victoria and Plaza 25 de Mayo, respectively. The city centre of Buenos Aires, Plaza de Mayo has been the scene of the most momentous events in Argentine history, as well as the largest popular demonstrations in the country. On the occasion of the first anniversary of the May Revolution in 1811, the Pirámide de Mayo (May Pyramid) was inaugurated in the square's hub, becoming Buenos Aires' first national monument.


7. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
• The National Museum of Fine Arts is an Argentine art museum in Buenos Aires, located in the Recoleta section of the city. The Museum inaugurated a branch in Neuquén in 2004. The museum hosts works by Goya, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Rodin, Manet and Chagall among other artists.


8. Recoleta Cemetery
• La Recoleta Cemetery is a cemetery located in the Recoleta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Perón, presidents of Argentina, Nobel Prize winners, the founder of the Argentine Navy, and military commanders such as Julio Argentino Roca. In 2011, the BBC hailed it as one of the world's best cemeteries, and in 2013, CNN listed it among the 10 most beautiful cemeteries in the world.


9. El Ateneo Grand Splendid
• El Ateneo Grand Splendid is a bookshop in Buenos Aires. In 2008, The Guardian placed it as the second most beautiful bookshop in the world after Book Store Dominicanen in Netherland. In 2019, it was named the "world's most beautiful bookstore" by the National Geographic.


10. Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires
• The Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires, mostly known for its acronym MALBA is an art museum located on Figueroa Alcorta Avenue, in the Palermo section of Buenos Aires. The mission of the MALBA is to collect, preserve, research and promote Latin American art from the onset of the 20th century to the present. This involves educating the public about Latin American artists, and the diversity of cultural and artistic holdings in this region. Among the collection's highlights is Frida Kahlo's Autorretrato con chango y loro (1942), which in 1995 cost Costantini $3.2 million and which set the record price for Kahlo at the time. Other notable works in the collection include Abaporu (1928) by Tarsila do Amaral, bought in 1995 for almost $1.5 million; Baile en Tehuantepec (1928) by Diego Rivera, for which Costantini paid $15.7 million at Phillips in 2016; and La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman, 1951), a sculpture by Leonora Carrington purchased for $11.3 million in 2024.


11. Woman's Bridge
• The Puente de la Mujer (Spanish for "Woman's Bridge") is a rotating footbridge for Dock 3 of the Puerto Madero commercial district of Buenos Aires. It is of the cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge type and is also a swing bridge, but somewhat unusual in its asymmetrical arrangement. It has a single mast with cables suspending a portion of the bridge which rotates 90 degrees in order to allow water traffic to pass. When it swings to allow watercraft passage, the far end comes to a resting point on a stabilizing pylon.


12. Parque Tres de Febrero
• Parque Tres de Febrero, popularly known as Bosques de Palermo (Palermo Woods), is an urban park of approximately 400 hectares (about 989 acres) located in the neighborhood of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Located between Libertador and Figueroa Alcorta Avenues, it is known for its groves, lakes, and rose gardens (El Rosedal).


13. Casa Rosada
• The Casa Rosada,  'the Pink House', is the president of the Argentine Republic's official workplace, located in Buenos Aires. The palatial mansion is known officially as Casa de Gobierno ("House of Government"). Normally, the president lives at the Quinta de Olivos, the president of Argentina's official residence, located in Olivos, Greater Buenos Aires. The characteristic color of the Casa Rosada is baby pink, and it is considered one of the most emblematic buildings in Buenos Aires. The building also houses a museum, which contains objects relating to former presidents of Argentina. It has been declared a National Historic Monument of Argentina.


14. Obelisco
• The Obelisco de Buenos Aires (Obelisk of Buenos Aires) is a national historic monument and icon of Buenos Aires. Located in the Plaza de la República in the intersection of avenues Corrientes and 9 de Julio, it was erected in 1936 to commemorate the quadricentennial of the first foundation of the city.


15. La Bombonera
• La Bombonera (The Chocolate Box), oficially named Alberto José Armando Stadium is an association football stadium located in Buenos Aires. The stadium is owned by Boca Juniors, a football club based in the La Boca neighbourhood and one of Argentina's premier teams, which has over 18 million fans, the most in Argentina and around 40% of the country's total population. The unusual shape of the stadium has led to it having excellent acoustics and the Boca support being nicknamed "La Doce". The pitch at La Bombonera is 105m × 68m.


16. Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral
• The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, is a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina. It is located in the city center, overlooking Plaza de Mayo, on the corner of San Martín and Rivadavia streets, in the San Nicolás neighbourhood. It is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires and held the rank of Primatial church of Argentina from 1822 to 2024. The cathedral was declared National Historic Monument in 1942.