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It’s one of the most recognisable sculptures in the world, and only 22 casts were made from the original mould. Of those, only one is in South America, sitting in Plaza de Congreso in front of the National Congress Building.

However, in a sad reflection of what happens here if it ain’t fenced off, Rodin’s Thinker recently got a new, temporary, colour.

I saw it on a tour a few weeks ago, snapped the above pic, and within 2 days it was scrubbed clean – impressively fast for this city where graffiti scrawled on the main Cathedral is often left for weeks on end. However, according to this article, in their haste to blast the pink off with water, the city Government may have caused irreversible damage to the sculpture and its original patination. Nice try…

Towards the end of the 19th Century, after a series of increasingly serious disease outbreaks (in 1871 Yellow Fever wiped out nearly 10% of the city’s inhabitants), it was decided to do something about the quality of the drinking water. Work began in 1887 on a central pumping station which when finished in 1894 turned out to be one of the most flamboyant architectural works in a city not known for its understated buildings. Officially named El Gran Depósito Ingeniero Guillermo Villanueva it soon became known by a much more fitting and stately name, El Palacio de Aguas Corrientes (The Palace of Running Water).

Palace may not be overstating things. It may well have contained 12 enormous tanks with a total capacity of 72 million litres of water, but it’s the exterior that truly grabs the attention. Decorated with 400,000 ceramic and glazed terracotta tiles made by Royal Doulton in England and sporting the coats of arms of the 14 (at the time) Argentinian provinces, it’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer effort put into a public utility building.


Whilst its water-pumping days may be over, it still houses the Buenos Aires Water Company’s offices as well as a small water works museum. It can be found on Avenida Córdoba, a couple of blocks from the Callao subte station on Line D.

Wearing my Tour Guide hat, I was recently asked a few questions by the good folks at Expanish Spanish School Argentina about my experiences in Buenos Aires and the things I love and hate about the city. The interview can be found here: Expanish Meets Buenos Aires Local Tours.

Nice little film tracing the day of one of Buenos Aires’ famous Dog Walkers. Victor has been doing the job for the last 12 years and has been bitten three times and has lost 2 dogs (both turned up later!).

Every Sunday, the main street in San Telmo is closed to traffic and opened to stalls selling all the Argentina-related knick-knacks you could desire. Popular with locals and tourists alike it’s one of the essential experiences Buenos Aires has to offer.

On the last morning of our long weekend in London we headed to one of my favourite spots in London, the Natural History Museum. For me, it’s what come to mind when you picture a museum – from the rooms filled with fossils and precious stones to the stuffed animals and the entrance hall filled by the dinosaur skeleton, it has it all. This time however, my eye was drawn to the outside of the building, in particular the sculptures on the facade. When it was built, the Victorians believed they were building a cathedral to knowledge, and looking at the work that went into the decoration of the museum, you can see what they meant.

I recently came across an old notebook I’d carried with me on my travels when I first arrived in Argentina and tucked inside the back cover were some tickets from bus journeys I had taken. Travelling by bus had been such a big part of my trip around South America that it was nice to be reminded of the distances and experiences that these tickets represented. A couple had the prices on them, so I decided to conduct a little experiment.

That Argentina has been experiencing heavy inflation these last few years is no secret. Whilst the government has gone out of their way to deny it, even fining agencies who dared publish figures which disagreed with their own, living here it’s impossible not to notice prices increasing on a monthly basis. So having the prices from the past in front of me, I thought I’d take a look at how they have changed.

In March 2009 I travelled from Rio Gallegos to Buenos Aires, a journey of 36 hours which cost me 500 pesos. The same journey today according to plataforma10.com would cost 810 pesos – an increase of 61% over 28 months. Given that unofficial estimates of inflation have been around the 25% mark for the last couple of years, that’s not too bad.

Other, shorter and probably more popular routes have however suffered much more heavily. Looking at the tickets from my parents trip last October, the cost of Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn has increased by 62% in just 10 months. In the 31 months since I travelled to Puerto Iguazu, the cost of a Cama class ticket has gone up a whopping 154% from 185 to 471 pesos.

The most heavily affected by this type of inflation (which applies to everything, not just travel) is the Argentinian population who will be able to buy less and less as rent, food and transport take up more and more of their salaries which are not increasing by the same proportion as prices. However I do see another side effect which will be to affect tourism. As exchange rates have varied very little in the last few years these type of price increases are making Argentina twice as expensive to visit as it was only 2 years ago.

Flights to Argentina from Europe and North America are not cheap and the relative inexpensive costs (lodging, transport & eating) once you are here compensated for that making a holiday here a realistic proposition. The more those prices increase the less viable Argentina will become as a destination, something which will hurt both the travel industry and the economy as a whole.

It’s a classic comment – when you live somewhere you don’t visit the tourist sights. How many Londoners haven’t climbed Tower Bridge or taken a look round Buckingham Palace? As I was not only coming to the UK on holiday but also travelling with Laura how had never visited, I decided to treat my stay in Dorset as a tourist would.

Which is how we found ourselves in the cute little village of Lulworth at 10am on a nice sunny English day ready to tackle one of the the most iconic stretches of Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. As we were with my parents we needed to stop and have a cup of coffee – it seems that retirement requires a coffee break every 2 hours or so, but I made the most of it and had a bacon roll as well in preparation for the hills ahead.

After a quick look at Lulworth Cove, a near-perfect circle opening onto the sea, we tackled the path out of the village up onto the cliffs. After 10 minutes of huffing and puffing we arrived at the top and were rewarded with a spectacular view as far as Old Harry Rocks to the left and Portland to the right.

The highlight of the short version of the walk is without a doubt Durdle Door, which Laura described as looking like a dinosaur taking a drink, which seems fair enough to me.

We left Mum & Dad at this point and continued eastwards towards Osmington, 5 miles away. There were 3 more steep climbs as the cliffs rose and fell, but each summit provided you with stunning views and an ever-changing vista. Despite having visited Durdle Door with guests several times, I had never ventured east and was amazed at just how beautiful and tranquil it is.

I’ve been lucky enough to travel a lot and have visited some truly beautiful places around the world, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this stretch of coast can give any of them a run for their money, and all this only 10 miles from where I grew up.

I’m back in the UK for a few weeks and have been playing with my new camera – it’s got lots of fancy, fiddly settings which I am trying to get to grips with. One preset function I have been having a lot of fun with is the tilt-shift setting, which basically focusses the centre of the picture whilst blurring the top and bottom, giving the image the look and feel of a model. Here are some taken from the top of Conwy Castle which I think work pretty well.

I’ll tell anyone that listens that the best map of Buenos Aires is the Interactive Map on the Buenos Aires City Government site. With it you can easily find any street address and for planning a journey on public transport it’s indispensable.

However, today I discovered a feature I’d not spotted before which makes me very happy indeed (it doesn’t take much). As well as the expected map and satellite views, it offers a choice of photographic overlays from times gone by. A satellite view from 2004 and aerial views from 1978, 1965 and 1940. I’ve spent most of the afternoon exploring 1940s Buenos Aires and am going to sharing some of the highlights here (click on all photos for larger views).

Completed around about the turn of the 20th Century, the Plaza de Mayo has not changed beyond recognition in the 71 years since this photo was taken. The main change is that the Casa Rosada was surrounded by roads on all four sides back then. Balcarce to its left as we look at it is now pedestrianised and the Paseo Colón passed right past the front of the building instead of looping round the gardens as it does now. Also, with fewer trees than nowadays, it’s easier to see the symmetry of the Plaza itself in the aerial view, something its hard to appreciate from ground level.

If the Plaza de Mayo hasn’t changed much, then the above shot shows an area that has undergone some major work. We all know the Avenida 9 de Julio these days as it cuts its way through the heart of the city. Well it hasn’t always been this way – back in 1940 it was only 5 blocks long and was more of a Plaza than an Avenida! The Obelisco had been built 4 or 5 years prior and it wouldn’t be for another 10 years until the buildings between Cerrito & Carlos Pelligrini would be levelled to extend the avenue. The Teatro Colón can be seen in the bottom left of the picture.

El Caminito, now one of the main tourist attractions in Buenos Aires was a long way from that in 1940. As the above picture shows it was then simply a spur of the main railway that served the docks. It wouldn’t be for another 15 years before local artist Benito Quinquela Martín would begin working on his vision of transforming it into Buenos Aires’ first open-air musuem.

The above picture shows one of the main sights of my tour, the market building in Abasto. At the time of this picture it had only been open for 5 years and would remain so for another 44 years. Clearly visible is the rear sections which is somewhat altered these days, but the front section remains intact as it was then. Also note the tramlines running up and down Corrientes. Buenos Aires once had one of the largest tram systems in the world (more than 850km of track at its peak) which was dismantled in the 1960s in favour of buses.

There is, of course, much more to be discovered with these wonderful old aerial shots and as I find more things of interest I’ll post them here.