Buenos Aires Guide
The outer barrios
Should you somehow exhaust the huge array of things to do in the city centre, or if you want to explore a rawer side of Buenos Aires, or even if you just feel the need to escape the hustle and bustle of downtown without venturing too far afield, a whole network of outer barrios awaits you. A vast, roughly fan-shaped expanse of avenues and parks, homes and offices, shops and restaurants, factories and warehouses, these barrios sprawl south, west and north of central Buenos Aires towards the city limits. Since the main thing they have in common is a relative lack of tourists, these outer reaches present a prize glimpse of the daily lives of ordinary Porteños. Indeed, the further you travel in each direction, the more you will be struck by each barrio's very distinct character, somehow instilled with a more intense essence of the respective inner city neighbourhoods beyond which they extend. South of San Telmo and Boca, for example, lie dyed-in-the-wool working-class neighbourhoods that are home to some of the city's most authentic tango venues. West of Monserrat and San Nicolás, meanwhile, you move into the capital's steadfastly lower-middle-class heartland, where good consumer deals are found far more easily than in the city-centre boutiques. And north of Palermo, affluent Porteños have settled in a long string of leafy riverside districts replete with great restaurants and the odd boutique hotel.
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