Checking Into The Hotel
We checked into our hotel – Marriott Plaza in the heart of the city. The Marriott is one of the most historical hotels in the city and well frankly it needs a renovation. It is pretty tired.
The location of the hotel is very convenient as it is right at the beginning of Florida Street in front of the Plaza San Martin (pronounced San Martine) and even more important at a Metro stop.
The hotel would not have likely been our choice if we were not staying on Marriott hotel points.
Since my husband stays at Marriott (and Hilton) hotels frequently for business we were fortunate to have access to the Executive Lounge. The benefit to this is access to the internet, breakfast (continental plus meat and cheese) afternoon snacks, evening appetizers and soft beverages (to my chagrin, alcoholic beverages are pay as you go at this hotel lounge). We had a little snack in the lounge before heading out for a first walk on Florida Street.
Discovering Florida Street
Florida Street is a famous street in BA and was once a very elegant upscale street (check out the historical photographs in the Malba Museum), this is not the case today. You can see that it has suffered just like the Portenos (people of BA) from the financial crisis which began in 1999. Although the crisis officially ended in 2005 you can still see the impact on the city and it’s people.
Florida Street at Christmas
Florida is a pedestrian street so at least there are no cars, however it is extremely busy with a mix of locals, tourists, street vendors and people begging on the street.
I actually did not find this street to be very interesting. While some of the buildings do reflect a better time, and a clear European influence, in general the sidewalks are in very poor condition (in BA you have to constantly watch where you are walking to avoid falling into the abyss of what was once a sidewalk – this is only a slight exaggeration). There are more interesting neighbourhoods than the walk on Florida – but you cannot visit BA without that walk, so plan to do it but plan to spend most of your time in other areas.
Florida Street Architecture
During our walk down Florida Street we went into one of the department stores and found the gourmet food department and wine store. To our surprise Chandon (sparkling wine) was for sale for 35 pesos. We couldn’t understand how this could be. At this point we didn’t buy any as we were still walking and didn’t want to carry it. We later discovered that there is a Chandon winery in Mendoza and that is the reason that the Chandon is so inexpensive.
We skipped dinner and decided to make it an early night.
Read Other Posts In This Series:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
Part X
Part XI
Part XII
Part XIII
Part XIV
Part XV
Part XVI
Part XVII
