Last night I couldn’t be bothered cooking dinner (not unusual for me) and had decided to go out and have pizza at Nonna Angiulina, a favourite place near me. However, I ran into Lolly, who belongs to the same expat group as I do. We have lived in the same neighbourhood for ages, and this is the first time we’ve run into each other.
She invited me to come with her and her friend Sherry, who is visiting from Texas, for Vietnamese food at Saigon Noodles. I had never been there, and I really enjoyed the curried pork — which was hot and spicy, and that isn’t easy to come by here in Buenos Aires.
Before I left on vacation, these beautiful orange flowers, which I understand are called clivia, were just budding. I thought they were going to come and go while I was away and I would miss them. Happily, that wasn’t the case. When I came home and opened up the shutter, this is what I found!
Cecilia’s sister Adriana lives in Rosario, a city a couple of hours north of Buenos Aires. Since it was on our way home, we stopped off for an overnight visit.
This is the front door of the Cathedral.
We had lunch in a restaurant owned by world famous football star Lionel Messi. He wasn’t there, of course, as he plays football in Europe. But I couldn’t resist posing with his photo to send to my nephew’s young son, who is football crazy and knows all about Messi!
But there’s no doubt that the number one landmark in Rosario is a huge monument that takes up a city block, dedicated to the national flag of Argentina, which was designed and first flown here by General Manuel Belgrano. It’s usually just referred to as The Monument.
The monument from the front.
The flags along the edge of the square have no image of the sun in the centre. These are recognized as a national symbol, but more informal. They must always be flown at a lower level than the official ceremonial flag.
View from the top of the monument, with the Rio Parana in the background
A detail on the wall of the square, showing Belgrano waving the flag for the first time.
Seen from the top of the tower, this is a beautiful view of a beautiful flag. The blue and white stripes represent the sky, or the heavens, which is said to be where the fight for independence from Spain began. The Sun of May in the centre represents the May Revolution, the high point of the war for independence.
At the other end from the tower is the memorial to the unknown warrior, topped by an eternal flame.
When we were at the top of the tower, a spontaneous concert of the Argentine folk music called chamamé broke out. The charmingly surprising thing was that the musicians wouldn’t take any money, saying the music was a gift from the heart.
We tried very hard to find a milonga so that I could dance tango on vacation, but it’s really a Buenos Aires thing. This poster for a class was the nearest thing we found!
And since we went there to visit Adriana, I thought it appropriate to add this charming photo of the two sisters walking hand-in-hand along the street.
This was my second visit to Rosario. It is a delightful city, and I look forward to going again.
In an earlier post I mentioned a little cafe called Café Con Dios, located near the Cathedral. We had a good chuckle at the clever play on words, as the expression is usually Vaya con Dios, or Go with God.
As it happened, next day we found ourselves in the area again in late afternoon when we were ready to sit down and have a break. Seeing where we were, we decided we might as well have coffee with God!
What a brilliant piece of branding this place is. It’s quite a small space, and when you walk in, the first thing you see is the back wall — covered in photos of popes past and present, as well as Mother Teresa and other women of the church.
But when the menu came, we fell about laughing. Here’s what it looked like.
A quote from Papa Francisco. The pizzas were called after the Books of the Bible, and the salads after the Prophets.
The coffees etc. are named after the Twelve Apostles!
When the waiter took our order, instead of the usual thank you, with a smile he called out Hallelujah, and when we left, he gave us each a little bookmark featuring Mother Teresa.
We definitely enjoyed our Coffee with God, and came out with a smile on our faces.
We had two lovely dinners in Coroba, completely different from one another but each in its own way excellent.
In most major cities in Argentina, and also in Chile and Uruguay, there are many Peruvian restaurants. Everyone raves about Peruvian food, so we knew we would include one during our visit. A main feature is the fish and seafood, which I don’t like. However, the flavours are wonderful in all the dishes, so I always find something to enjoy. This time the restaurant was a tiny place called Punta Sal, which is the name of a town in Peru. It was unpretentious, but did have lovely art work. And the food was first class!
Our experience the next night was at the other end of the scale. San Honorato had been recommended by Cecilia’s daughter Macarena, but in fact she hadn’t been there — and didn’t realize how expensive it was! However, you have to push the boat out at least once on holiday, and this was our major splurge!
The first surprise was that we were led downstairs into a cellar, displaying large quantities of wine on racks on the walls, as well as a table in the middle featuring a delicious array of cold meats, veggies, finely sliced apple in a savory sauce (my personal favourite) and pates. The host sat behind the table and explained what everything was, while we tried not to eat so much we would lose our appetite for dinner! And of course it was all accompanied by a beautiful glass of Malbec. Then we went upstairs for the dinner itself. And what a dinner it was!
The table was set with snowy white linen and pewter chargers with the restaurant’s logo on them. Cecilia had pasta stuffed with fresh salmon, Venetia had goat that had been cooked for hours and fell off the fork, and I had a beautiful steak cooked just as I asked for it, accompanied by lovely golden potato wedges. We took our time over the meal, and were well satisfied when we got home.
Thanks to Venetia for the photos which, as usual, are much better than mine!
During our holiday last week, we spent some time with Cecilia’s cousin, Elvira. As a long-time teacher, as well as administrator of a school, she has strong views on the state of education in Argentina, and she has written a book to draw attention to the problems. It’s called La Tiza de Oro, or The Golden Chalk.
While we were in Cordoba, she held her official launch and book signing, so of course we went along to support her. Venetia was the official photographer for the event, and these are just a few of the shots she took.
Many people manage to keep up their blogs on vacation, and I should be able to do that because my blog isn’t commercial. It’s a fun exercise to keep my friends up to date on what’s going on in my lovely life here in Argentina. But somehow last week I didn’t have much time (or, let’s be honest, inclination) to blog. I was more into enjoying dinners out and sightseeing.
Today is Sunday. It’s election day in Argentina, and everything is closed. So it’s a good day to stay home and do some catching up.
The Cathedral, Cordoba
Most South American cities have a lot of beautiful churches, and Cordoba is no exception. Two that I particularly enjoyed were the Cathedral (of course), and the Iglesia del Sagrado Corazon, better known as the Capuchino for its association with the Capuchin order.
This is the front of the Cathedral, but the most notable feature is the dome. It dominates the area all around the building itself. Even when you can’t see the whole church, you can often see the dome looming above its surroundings.
Even when we went inside the Cabildo, when we looked up, there it was!
I tried to get both the dome and this little cafe in the same shot. In a brilliant piece of branding, it’s called Cafe con Dios! More on that later.
Sagrado Corazon
This is one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen — anywhere. The whole place blew my mind, but particularly the way they have used different colors of stone. I’m not sure my photographic skills show them to advantage, but I hope you can get some idea of it.
Like barley sugar twists!
I love this angel!
Amazing use of colour in the stonework around the man door
On Monday we drove down from the mountains to Cordoba City, and had one of our aventuras.
We settled into our Air BnB (not the best one any of us has experienced), and went out for a late lunch/early dinner. We found a nice looking Italian place called IT! It wasn’t actually very good, but we had our meal and set out on our first exploration of the city.
We found the main square of the city, not surprisingly called Plaza San Martin, and went inside the cathedral, which was beautiful. Then, outside in the square, we found Michael Jackson!
After watching him for a few moments, I sat down and did this sketch of the cathedral door.
So perhaps you are wondering where the aventura came in. Well …
We went back to our place to relax a bit. We had decided that instead of going out to dinner, as we were tired, we would just eat some snacks and drink some wine at home. Just as we were settling down, Cecilia announced she couldn’t find her car keys.
We’re not using the car here, so it was in the garage of the Air BnB. The three of us hunted high and low, in the car and all over the apartment. As our host had parked the car, we called him to see if he had inadvertently taken them with him. No, he hadn’t.
As we sat pondering (and drinking), Venetia suddenly remembered that Cecilia had dropped something in the restaurant at dinner, and wondered if the keys had fallen out of her purse at the same time. We called the restaurant. They had them!
Cecilia and I went right away and picked them up — and stopped for ice cream on the way back to celebrate! That was an aventura we could have done without!
On Sunday we drove up a little higher into the mountains. The Sierra mountains are not as challenging as the Andes, as they are not as high, and gently rounded instead of the hard rocks. They are still pretty high though, and the scenery was lovely. The area we visited today is called Villa Yacanto.
My favourite spot was by this river, where the water was so clear everything was reflected. I love this shot I took of the rocks that look as if they are floating in the sky.
We found the only restaurant in the area and had a good lunch before venturing up higher.
We came upon this lovely scene of a man teaching his little daughter to fish. She was concentrating very hard!
Yesterday started a new aventura, ie a road trip with Cecilia and Venetia! This time we’re venturing into the Province of Cordoba, an 8-9 hour drive north of Buenos Aires.
All three of us went to a party on Friday night at the home of our friends Rob and Alex. Who goes to a party before an early morning departure on a road trip? Well, we do! It was a fun night and I’m glad we didn’t miss it.
We stayed overnight at Cecilia’s place so that we could get an early start on Saturday morning, and we duly left at 7 am. (Venetia isn’t really aware that there is such a time as 7 am, especially on the weekend, but we rolled her out into to car anyway.)
We took the scenic route as Cecilia was keen for us to see how beautiful Cordoba Province is — and it is. It did, however, add an hour or so to our time, and we arrived around 6 pm at our Air BnB in a lovely little town called Villa General Belgrano. Right in the midst of the mountains of Cordoba, Argentina is a little piece of Germany! Instead of trying to describe what I mean, here are some photos taken on the main street.
The two main commodities here seem to be beer and chocolate. Since I’m not a fan of beer but definitely a fan of chocolate, that’s what I’m concentrating on. But there are so many chocolate shops that we can’t decide where to buy. So we are systematically trying them all, and we’ll choose where to buy before we leave on Tuesday morning!
Today, Cecilia and her cousin Elvirita, who lives up here, took us up into the mountains to let us see some more spectacular scenery. I have some photos and I also did a sketch, but it’s pretty late now so I think I’ll wait till tomorrow to post those photos.
Last night I couldn’t be bothered cooking dinner (not unusual for me) and had decided to go out and have pizza at Nonna Angiulina, a favourite place near me. However, I ran into Lolly, who belongs to the same expat group as I do. We have lived in the same neighbourhood for ages, and this is the first time we’ve run into each other.
