February 26, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

Palacio Barolo

Today I visited a place I’ve been meaning to see for weeks, Palacio Barolo. As the name suggests, it is one of the many ‘palaces’ from times past that now survive in Buenos Aires in other forms. Some are office buildings, others private residences still and yet others condo buildings. Funnily enough, Palacio Barolo was built in the 1930s as an office building and has never been anything else.

It’s a fascinating place. The original owner and builder was one Luis Barolo, an Italian immigrant who had arrived in Argentina in 1890 and had made a fortune in knitted fabrics. He commissioned an Italian architect, Mario Palanti, to design the building. But there are two interesting facts that influenced the design.

First, Barolo was fascinated by Dante’s Divine Comedy. The building riffs off this work in the number of floors, the number of balconies, and a whole lot of arithmetic that frankly went over my head, but it all ties in with The Divine Comedy.

Second, both Barolo and Palanti were Freemasons, and the building is rife with Masonic symbolism.

The young woman who showed us around, Veronica, was very knowledgeable and interesting. Someone asked her why she dressed as she did, and she explained that this was how the mostly male office workers of the 1930s would have dressed. She looked very cute I must say.

She finished the tour with a visit to an office typical of the time of the building and I couldn’t resist having my photo taken at the desk, although it’s doubtful a woman would ever have sat there!

This is an official photo of the outside of the building. And this is what you see from one of those little round balconies w-a-a-y up at the top of the tower!

After visiting “hell” and “purgatory” by elevator, we then walked up a v-e-r-y narrow spiral staircase to “paradise” at the second top level of balconies, and then on to the lighthouse at the top. It was so blazing hot up there that some of us commented it felt more like hell than paradise!

An identical building was also built in Montevideo, Uruguay, and the original idea was that the two lighthouses would flash directly at each other and meet in the middle of the river. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone that Buenos Aires and Montevideo are not opposite each other across the river — so this plan never materialized. Ah yes, South America — you have to love it!

I sat on the sidewalk and sketched the building from the outside. The crick in my neck may take weeks to go away. The image in the corner is the souvenir stamp Veronica gave us at the end of the tour. All in all, it was a fun outing.

I was going to my Spanish lesson from there, but had an hour or so to kill. So I sat at a sidewalk cafe, drinking a lovely, cool Campari and orange juice, and thinking how happy I am to be in Buenos Aires.

February 24, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

Gaucho Day at Estancia Santa Susana

Well, the day tour worked out the second time around! I went yesterday, and the arrangements worked out fine this time.

The estancia day was, no question about it, very touristy, but enjoyable nonetheless — except for the elderly tourists from Florida, who kept complaining it was too touristy!!

The place itself is beautiful — lots of big, open sky, palm trees and horses.

One of the highlights of the day was the traditional asado. Here is a sequence showing the fire heating up the coals, then the meat (only a fraction of the length of it) grilling slowly. They explained that the traditional Argentine way of grilling meat is over coals that have stopped glowing red, and the meat is several inches above the heat. This means it takes a long time to cook, but the result is definitely worth the wait! Imagine the job this poor guy has — when the temperature outside is over 30 degrees!

The sequence is that you are served first sausages, usually two kinds, followed by steaks, sometimes lamb and then chicken. Seriously! All with copious quantities of Malbec of course. Then while we were watching the folkloric show, they served us dessert!

We did have some free time to wander around, so of course I took a chance to sit on the grass and sketch. This is actually the museum, but fashioned after an actual estancia house of old. It’s much bigger on the inside than it looks, and could house quite a large family.

It was really too hot to sketch!

They had a gift shop, so of course I forced myself to go inside! This is what I bought. It’s hard to see it here, but it’s a cowskin wall hanging with a depiction of a gaucho at work, and the picture is made of individual pieces of cowskin glued on. I like it because it represents a completely different side of Argentina from Buenos Aires.

For me, the gaucho show was the best part of the day.

These guys are quite something to watch. The horsemanship is amazing. In this contest, each gaucho rides like the clappers towards this long leather string that has a tiny ring on the end. They have to put a stick the size of a pen into the ring and pull it off. When they do, they can present the ring to a lady and she has to give him a kiss. Unfortunately I was not the recipient of a ring — that would have been quite an easy price to pay!

The horses are really beautiful. So are the gauchos.

This handsome waiter served me some fabulous food — and then morphed into an even more handsome gaucho after lunch!

As I’ve said before, I am not a tourist in Argentina, but a temporary resident. That said, though, there are times when you just have to get into the spirit of the thing and enjoy the entertainment for what it is, and authenticity be damned. I met some nice women from Vancouver, and a woman and her niece from Ecuador, so it was fun to enjoy their company on the day. And as they only had one evening left in Buenos Aires I was able to recommend a great cafe for them near their hotel.

The time is flying by. After my tango lesson today I was booking a session for next week, and realized we would be into March by that time. A few weeks ago I befriended a woman from Switzerland, and she was going home today. She sent me an email saying she felt as if she was being pulled out of the ground like a carrot, so badly did she want to stay in Buenos Aires.

Time, time, please slow down!

February 18, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

The Best Laid Plans…

To quote the Scottish National Bard, Robert Burns, “The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.” Well, mine went agley this morning.

I had booked with Viator for a one-day trip to an estancia 100 kilometres from Buenos Aires. I was really looking forward to seeing the gauchos at work and eating yet another traditional Argentina asado. They had told me they didn’t pick up at private residences, so I was to meet the group in the lobby of a hotel five minutes from here at 9.40 am. I had breakfast first, and arrived there around 9.20 am, in lots of time. Nobody showed up at 9.40 am, but that didn’t surprise me because this is Argentina and nobody expects to be on time. But there were four Australian guys who told me they were also waiting for the Santa Susanna tour.

Just before 10 am a guide came in and ushered the four Australians and me out to a mini bus. But five minutes later it turned out this was not my tour. They were going to the same place, but I was on a different tour. They took me back to the hotel, and the guide called her agency to let the Viator people know I was with them and on my way back.

Well, I don’t know where communication broke down, but when I got there five minutes later — my tour had left! I came back home and emailed Viator, giving them the play-by-play. I have asked to take the tour next Tuesday on the same booking, so I’m waiting to see what they say. It was quite expensive and they have a good reputation, so I’m hoping it will get sorted. Stay tuned.

Jardin Japones

Because I had planned a day off work, I didn’t feel like changing my mind and buckling down, so I decided to go to the Japanese Garden. I had been there before and was looking forward to doing some sketching. I got on the right bus, and I asked the driver to let me know when we arrived, which he assured me he would do — and then promptly forgot! Fortunately I had a vague idea where it was, so at one point I walked down to the front of the bus, and as soon as the driver saw me he said, “Oh, you missed the stop. You’ll have to walk back to the last stop.” Very cavalier about the whole thing he was. Apparently another plan was ganging agley.

Anyway, I walked back — and back, and back. Because of this, I came at the garden the long way and it was a very hot day, so by the time I got there I was reduced to a greasy spot. Anyway, after that the day got better. I had a lovely three hours in the garden, did one not-too-terrible sketch and had a nice lunch in the air-conditioned restaurant.

This shot shows today’s date, so I guess they change it every day. Cool!

This is Mine

In the gift shop, for 10 pesos I bought some luck from the Oracle of Good Fortune. It was an elaborate business, but I ended up with this scroll — apparently it’s all good! I went outside and tied it onto the wires, which apparently invests it with all the good luck from the other scrolls already there. Let’s hope my good luck begins with a trip to the estancia next Tuesday!

This is a sketch I did yesterday of an old building near me. I got the outline and a bit of the detail done, but it was so hot I had to leave and go back again later in the day when it was cooler to finish it. Never had to do that before!

February 16, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

Roundup of the Past Few Days

I haven’t posted since I came back from Gualeguaychu, so this will be a bit of a roundup of what I’ve been doing over the past few days, complete with photos.

First, I had a couple of days feeling under the weather last Friday and part of Saturday. When I came home from breakfast I had intended to get a lot of work done, but my energy level was below zero and I couldn’t drag myself to my desk. All I wanted to do was sleep, my joints were aching and I felt yucky. Dire thoughts of zika or dengue were going through my head!

In the end though, it sorted itself out by midday Saturday, and I figured there were two reasons. First, although it has been hot since I arrived here, last week it was more than hot — it was oppressive. When you stepped out the door you felt the atmospheric pressure pushing down, and I think that was the first problem. But the other part was probably my own fault, as I realized I hadn’t been drinking enough water. (Plenty of wine, but I don’t think that counts.) So I started drinking much more water, the atmospheric pressure has lightened up considerably and I am back to normal.

Cucumber Sandwiches for Tea!

I think I mentioned before that there is a very posh hotel across the street from me. It’s called the Alvear Palace — quite old and considered among the very best hotels in Buenos Aires. And for some reason, they are well known for their afternoon teas! I had been promising myself that treat for a while, so decided to do it on Sunday. People had told me to go there hungry, so I didn’t have any lunch and planned to make this my dinner as well. It was certainly something to remember. Here are some photos.

Very olde worlde, full of charm. The room is called the Orangerie, and the glass ceiling gives it a lovely outdoors feeling.

Waiters and waitresses in old style uniforms (as they are in many of the restaurants here). A pity there wasn’t a waitress in this shot, as they wore white gloves. Haven’t seen any of those in a while.

Lovely small sandwiches, and so many of them it wasn’t hard to fill up. I don’t know where they get their bread, because that’s something I’ve often found disappointing here, but there was a variety here and it was all good.

They did have lovely little scones with homemade jam, but — alas — no cream! For one brought up on authentic Devonshire cream teas, this was a big gap. But then again, when in Rome…

I had been told they excel with their desserts, and I thought this selection of small pieces was it. Wrong. See next picture!

I chose this feathery light choux pastry concoction because it was the smallest thing on the trolley and I was getting pretty full by that time. It was delicious though and I managed to eat it all — what a surprise!

There was no choice in tea, by the way. The one they served was some kind of blend of citrus and other types of black tea, and it was delicious. She kept coming to fill up my cup, and I’m usually a one-cup tea drinker. But again, it was so good I drank three cups!

This is a close-up of the silverware. They even had an elegant little silver container for the sugar substitute — how classy is that?

It was lovely, but the only thing missing for me was company. For the most part I don’t mind dining alone, but somehow here I needed someone to chat with. Frankly, despite the ambience and lovely food, I was a bit bored. But I’m going back next month with Cecilia, so that will fix that problem.

Dinner with New Friends

There was no problem last night with a lack of dinner companions. A year or so ago at an InterNations event in Toronto, I met Diana. She was born in Argentina, although has lived many places, the most recent of which is Toronto. She introduced me electronically to her cousin, Pablo, and he and his wife, Cynthia, invited me to dinner last night.

Coincidentally, they chose a great Italian restaurant that is less than a five-minute walk from my place, so it was perfect. They are an interesting couple who run their own business online, so we had lots to talk about. We also shared stories and laughs about our lives, and all in all it was a lovely night. I am going to return their hospitality next month before I go back, and I will look forward to their company again.

And don’t they both contribute to this idea that all Porteños are good looking??

Couple of Sketches to Round Things Up

I haven’t sketched as much as I thought, because it has often just been too hot. (I know I’ve mentioned that to some people before, much to everyone’s annoyance!) But I’m determined to get some more done, so here are two I did in the last couple of days.

Avenida 9 de Julio is apparently the widest street in South America, and I wouldn’t doubt it. But it has a lovely treelined boulevard down the middle, and I found this beautiful little fountain at one of the intersections. The bonus was that I could sit in the shade of a big tree as I sketched.

The lovely pink trees in the background are in full bloom right now. They are called ceibo and the blossom is the national flower of Argentina. Here’s a closeup I found online, although most of the ones I’ve seen are a lighter, more delicate shade than this.

I paid another visit to the famous Recoleta Cemetery, which is always fascinating. Here’s my sketch of one of the broad avenues that give the place the air of a little town — except everybody is dead!

Not many cities have a cemetery as a tourist attraction, but this one does. The rich and famous of Buenos Aires have been buried here for generations, including Eva Peron (Evita). Her family tomb is actually one of the less interesting looking ones, but of course it’s one of the most most visited and usually has a few floral tributes. By the way, contrary to most people’s perception and largely due to the movie, Evita is not universally adored here. Many still worship her memory, but many others don’t. The Peronista movement is, however, still alive and relatively well in Argentina.

I think that’s it for now. Please leave your comments so I know you are still interested in my adventures!

Now I’m off to meet with some expats and then have my tango lesson — always a highlight of my week!

February 5, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

A Few Updates

This amazing tree is a five-minute walk from me. I don’t know if I can convey its immense size in these photos but I thought I’d try. It is a gomero, or rubber tree, and it is 200 years old — I think the oldest tree in Buenos Aires. When I took the photos they were trimming some of the branches, so the ladder up against the trunk might give you some sense of proportion. I’ve seen photographers trying to photograph just the trunk, but it’s difficult because the branches put it into such heavy shade. Fantastic.

Yesterday, Donna and I went on a mission to buy tango shoes. We were in a very old section of the city that is full of tango history. There is a museum dedicated to Carlos Gardel, the acknowledged father of tango in Argentina.

We found the shop, but both of us wanted shoes with a slightly lower heel. They had some, but those were boring compared to the brightly coloured, sexy ones with the four inch heels. I would last maybe five minutes in those, so I don’t think tango shoes are in my future.

Instead, I had my picture taken with this famous tango singer — unfortunately I’ve forgotten her name. But note the interesting grafitti in the background — that’s not something you see every day!

Finally, just to let you know I’m still sketching, here’s another example of me pushing my limited perspective abilities!

No more posts for a few days, as we’re off to the carnival tomorrow! It’s in a place called Gualeguaychu, and although I had never heard of it, this is apparently the second biggest carnival in South America — after Rio of course. We get back next Tuesday, so I’ll report in again then. Ciao for now!

January 29, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

Floralis Generica

I remembered this amazing sculpture from my last visits, and was determined to sketch it this time.

It’s called Floralis Genérica, but most people just call it The Flower. It was given to the city by Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano in 2002. It is made of stainless steel over a skeleton of aluminum and reinforced concrete. At 23 metres high, it is very impressive.

Its petals open every morning at 8 am and close at dusk. So far I haven’t seen it closed, but I’ll have to make a point of doing that one day.

Here is my sketch, with a photo taken from the same vantage point to let you see what it actually looks like!

January 26, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

Getting to Know my ‘Hood

This is a sketch of the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Engineering building. It’s a beautiful building and I’ve been wanting to sketch it for a while, but the trouble was I kept passing it when I was on the bus and I wasn’t quite sure where it was or how to get to it.

Yesterday, again on a bus, I caught a glimpse of another landmark up a side street and that positioned me. So today I walked up there — took me about half an hour — and sketched it. So this represents a small triumph in finding my way around my beautiful Buenos Aires.

Another thing happened today, a small thing but fun. I took part in a teleseminar, and you know how at the beginning they invite people to say their first name and where they are calling in from? Well I jumped in and happily said, “This is Helen in Buenos Aires” — how cool is that?!

January 26, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

Los Esteros del Ibera — A Different Argentina!

We arrived home from Los Esteros del Ibera on Friday night, and it has taken me all this time to settle down and post. That’s because, first, it was a long drive home, but more importantly I had to think about everything again because I want to try to convey to you what a wonderful experience it was. I have quite a few photos here, so I hope they will help illustrate what a great time it was.

Outward Bound

Argentina is a huge country, and we covered just one part of it here, but nonetheless it was a journey of 800 kilometres. We set out last Sunday morning at 7 am, with a plan to stop in Mercedes, a town in Corrientes Province where Cecelia had a friend (Cecelia has friends everywhere!). We stayed at a lovely little hotel called La Recova, and had a chance to visit Cecelia’s friend Claudia.

The journey to Mercedes took 9 hours, and the last hour was on a less-than-optimum road. We complained about it a lot, but that’s only because we didn’t know what was in store for us next morning. People had told us it was a bad road and we would have to take it slowly, but really you had to see this to believe it. The journey from Mercedes to Colonia Carlos Pelegrini is 115 kilometres, and it took us 4 hours — these pictures of the road will explain why!

Apparently they started to build the road, got 40 kilometres done and then for some reason the government took the money and stopped the road. If this was in Canada, there would be a yellow tape across, warning people not to go on the road construction site, but here it was just the way to get there!

Colonia Carlos Pelegrini

Anyway, we arrived in the small “settlement” (the best way I can describe it) around the middle of the afternoon. We were staying at a cabaña, which turned out to be a lovely vacation home with big bedrooms and enough beds to sleep a family of about ten! It had a good kitchen and — thank goodness – a pool! All three of us jumped in there before anything else, as the heat was so intense.

Our time there included three excursions — one on a boat and two walking. I don’t have pictures of the walking tours because we were too busy gawking at all the animals, and (seriously) avoiding the crocodile that was eyeing us from just beside the path!

My favourite was the boat tour on our first day. Our guide, Pedro, told us the laguna we were on was 5,000 hectares, and the entire ecosystem of Ibera was over a million hectares. If you look at the map of Argentina you can get a good idea of the size.

“Ibera” is a Guarani word — Guarani are the indigenous people of the area — meaning “brilliant waters”, and it is certainly appropriate.

We saw so many animals, birds and flowers I’m just throwing in a representative bunch of photos here to give you an idea.

Donna in the boat with our wonderful guide, Pedro

My quick sketch from the boat on the laguna

Cayman, known here as Yacares, were exciting to see

Beautiful water lilies were everywhere on the laguna

Even though we have deer in Canada, I was excited to see this beautiful stag right in the laguna beside us

Capibarras, commonly known here as carpinchos. These are so common they are kind of symbolic of the region. We loved them!

Sunset over the wetlands, sketched from the pool at dusk

I loved these trees with the beautiful red flowers

Carpincho skin makes beautiful leather which is quite distinctive, but Donna said she liked the little guys so much she wasn’t going to wear them. I, on the other hand, have my eye on some red carpincho ankle boots I saw in a shop in Buenos Aires …

Social Life in the Wetlands!

For such a small place, Carlos Pelegrini has an active social life — although you won’t find it as easily as at home. That’s because every building looks like a house. There are butcher’s shops, general stores, artisan studios and restaurants, but at first glance they all look like somebody’s house. We went to buy meat for our barbecue, and we followed the little map we got at the information booth. When we got there, we weren’t sure if we were in the right place, so Cecilia called out to the people sitting in their front yards across the street, “Butcher meat?” And they told us that was the right place and we should just knock the door. Sure enough, that’s where we bought the meat!

Our cabaña had a great open air barbecue area — not a pit, but a traditional Argentine asado, with a built-in charcoal platform and a grill over it. We had decided to have our barbecue on our last day, and we liked Pedro so much we asked him to join us. He agreed, and said that in fact he would do the cooking. Even better — we said we’d just wait in the pool until he was ready!

In true Argentine style, Cecilia bought enough meat for twice as many people, mainly ribs and sausages. We all looked forward to the ribs, which looked fantastic. They did taste excellent, but unfortunately they were so tough we could hardly chew them. Pedro explained to us that the cattle there have no place to go because everything is swamp and marsh, so they just hang around by the sides of the roads — which we had already seen. That, of course, means they don’t get any exercise and that’s why their meat is tough. Makes sense to me. But the sausages were good and we had a good time anyway.

Happy Birthday, Cecilia!

The main reason for our trip was to celebrate Cecilia’s 65th birthday, and she didn’t hesitate to tell anyone we met about it! We arranged to go to one of the local restaurants for dinner on her birthday. When we went in the afternoon to look at the place, she told the owner and she said she would welcome us there for this big event.

We had a delicious dinner, with no tough meat! I had taken a bottle of champagne, and when we arrived we found the owner of our cabaña had sent another bottle, and the owner of the restaurant gave us yet another. So there were were, three people and three bottles of champagne. Cecilia wondered if we should share with the other patrons of the restaurant and we decided we should.

There were two other tables with people, one a young couple and one a couple with two young children. Cecilia called out to the world at large that it was her birthday and they were welcome to share the champagne. What happened next was so-oo Argentine!

In Canada, people would probably have smiled self-consciously and maybe some would have accepted the bubbly. But here, immediately everyone was swarming our table, kissing Cecilia, kissing us and raising their glasses of champagne to toast the birthday girl! As everyone was around our table, we thought we might as well have the waiter and the owner too, so they joined in and made the party complete. What a great night!

The Oldest Inhabitant

Pedro told us about an old lady of 104 who was famous for having her own private chapel, so we decided to pay her a visit. We followed directions to her house and found her sitting outside with her caregiver and the latter’s grandson. We just called over to say we’d come to visit, and they welcomed us with the usual kisses all round. We looked at the little chapel and said how lovely it was, and they invited us to pull up a chair and have a chat. A few other people saw us and decided this was too good to miss, and soon we had a little gathering. It was just lovely, and the old lady actually bestowed a blessing on each one of us before we left, which I found very touching.

After we got home, we were all in the cabaña getting cool when there was a knock at the screen door. A young boy had brought round some craft items made by his mother and sister and asked if we would like to see them. We did, and of course we all bought things from him.

His name was Jonathan and he was eleven years old. Here he is, posing with Cecilia and me and the baskets we bought form him. He was lovely.

On Thursday we left Los Esteros, but our adventure wasn’t over yet.

Traditional Asado on the Way Home

We stopped again at Mercedes on the way home, and Claudia’s husband Jorge was delighted to give us a traditional Argentine asado at their second house. Although it is a little small to be called an estancia, it did have a big field at the back with two horses.

Jorge did us proud. The meal included home made sausages, blood sausage (which in Scotland we call black pudding — sounds much more appetizing I think), ribs (not tough at all!) and lamb. It was absolutely delicious and we all ate way too much. We had a traditional dessert of a local fruit called mamom, which I really enjoyed.

And here was a little bonus surprise! After dinner, Donna and I were chatting with Jorge when I looked down, and there sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor was this enormous toad! These guys are at least eight inches long (not counting the legs!) We had seen them on our night excursion with Pedro, but never expected to see one up this close in this setting. But what really made me smile was Jorge’s reaction. “Oh, don’t worry, he lives around here. Sometimes he passes through on his way to the back garden.”

We had a long drive back on Friday, and in the end I was happy to get home to my little Buenos Aires apartment. But it was a wonderful trip, and I’m grateful to Cecilia for taking us to a place we would never have found by ourselves.

It truly is a “different Argentina”.

January 16, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

More Sketching, More Cafes

Yesterday I decided to sketch the Presidential Palace. It is called the Casa Rosada, or Pink House, because — well, it’s pink. I found the right bus and didn’t get too lost — mind you, it’s kind of hard to miss!

It took me over an hour to do the sketch, and it was right at the hottest time of day. And there was not an inch of shade in the square, so I was really exposed to the sun. Fortunately I had plastered myself with sun cream before I left, so although I got a lot of colour I wasn’t too burned. (And where was my genuine Panama Hat, made in Ecuador? At home in the cupboard of course! I’ve taken it out now though and am making a point of wearing it because the sun is very strong.)

If you saw the movie “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” you may recognize the building, as it was from one of these balconies that Evita addressed the crowd in the square.

Today I went out to sketch, but didn’t end up doing anything because it was way too hot. (Oh shut up, Helen, I hear you say!)

From there I went for lunch to another cafe, the Cafe Tortoni. This is the oldest cafe in Buenos Aires, and they have kept it more or less the way it was. There are pictures on the walls of the famous writers and paintings by the artists of the thirties and forties, and there is art deco glass all over the place. I keep expecting Ernest Hemingway to walk in and sit down!

Tomorrow I am going away with Cecilia and a new friend, Donna from California, for five days to some kind of wetlands area in another part of the country. I don’t think there will be wifi, so I probably won’t blog again until I get back next Friday and then I can tell you all about it.

January 15, 2016 by hwilkie@mhwcom.com

Buenos Aires: a Book Lover’s Paradise

Coming from Toronto, where the choices in bookstores are limited mainly to Indigo and a few smaller places, I am amazed at what I found here in Buenos Aires. It’s a city that honours books and writers, and that shows in the number of bookstores all over the city. I snapped all these photos on the same couple of streets, and I’m sure I didn’t get them all. They all seem to have people browsing in them all the time.

Most of them have cafes inside, where people happily drink coffee while looking books over to decide whether to buy them or not. Try that in Indigo!

This one is my all-time favourite bookstore anywhere. It’s called El Ateneo Grand Splendid. It used to be a 100-yearold opera house (presumably called the Grand Splendid), but it wasn’t being used any more. In Toronto it would have surrendered long ago to the wrecker’s ball and been replaced by a condo building. But here, they made it into what they justifiably describe as the world’s most beautiful bookstore.

The photo is taken from the stage, which remains complete with curtains and serves as the cafe. There you can have anything from a cup of coffee to a full course lunch complete with wine — and all with a pile of as yet unpurchased books by your side!

I didn’t feel like sketching today, so I cheated. This is a sketch I did on my last visit. Ever wanted to find a quiet spot to read and have nobody bother you? Check out the buy in the bottom box!