Dick and Jane's Travels

A Travelblog (click on any picture to enlarge -- then click again to make it even bigger)

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Dick and Jane's Travels -- Index Page

Travel with Dick and Jane


Last Updated 30 January 2009

We've got a lot more pictures to link here, so check back frequently if you're into that stuff (or email us and we'll tell you when we add something)

Recent additions

    The United(?) Kingdom

    South American Trip (November 2005)

    Points East

    Mexico

    • Guanajuato (in progress) 2002 and 2007
    • San Miguel de Allende 2007
    • Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato 2007
    • Atotonilco Sanctuary, Guanajuato, Mexico 2007
    • Valenciana, Guanajuato, Mexico 2007

    Canada

    • Alberta: Bow and Morraine Lake 2003
    • Alberta: Columbia Ice Fields (Banff) 2003

    Italy

    France

    Spain

    Greece

    • 2000 trip in progress

    The American East

    • Washington, D.C. 2002 trip in progress
    • New York City 2005 and 2006 trips
    • Detroit: the Fisher Building 2007

    The American West

    • The Brothers Annual Hiking Trip to Lake Tahoe Area (September 2008) -- parts one, two, and three
    • The Brothers Annual Hiking Trip in the Volcanic Cascades (September 2007)
    • The Brothers Annual Hiking Trip at Olympic National Park in Washington State (September 2006)
    • The Annual Utah Male-bonding Hiking Trip with Dick's Family from 2004 and 2005
    • Hawaii (Oodles of pictures from August 2005 and January 2007) really far west
    • Yosemite National Park, California 2008

    Labels:

    posted by Dick Schmitt @ 8:16 AM  

    Wednesday, March 15, 2006

    San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Argentina







    Visited November 26, 2005

    Typical street entertainment in Plaza Dorrego

    We spent our Saturday afternoon walking from our hotel to the San Telmo area. San Telmo is the kind of Barrio that keeps reinventing itself: While the rich once lived here, they abandoned it in 1870s and fled North when the yellow fever threatened, leaving their colonial mansions to be converted to tenements for the swelling immigrant population. A century later in 1970, the BA government began to slowly restore some of its landmarks. As a consequence, San Telmo has resurrected itself as a bohemian tourist destination and the center for the tango, Argentina’s national dance that borders on religion.

    On our way South down the narrow Reconquista street we passed this church before reaching the Plaza de Mayo:

    Basilica de Nuestra Senora de la Merced




    The Basilica of Our Lady de la Merced

    The third church on this site, this Jesuit designed basilica sits on the narrow Reconquista street between the San Martin Plaza and Plaza de Mayo. Started in 1721,construction finished six decades later in 1779.

    BA’s defenders used it when the Brits invaded in the early 1800s. The gates at the front door and the rosette window were added during BA’s heyday at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, stain-glass was added to many other windows darkening the baroque and rococo interior. (Things will get worse as stained glass tends to darken with time).



    The sculpture at the top shows General Manuel Belgrano(discussed in the travelblog on Luján) offering the symbol of his command of the Army of the North to Our Lady with the help of his officers and clerics.

    Here’s a close-up.




    General Belgrano presenting his army


    On the other side of the Plaza de Mayo we passed another basilica: St Francis which we described in another travelblog, in case you haven’t had enough of this sort of thing.




    San Telmo’s Plaza Dorrego

    San Telmo is anchored by a lovely square called Plaza Dorrego (where our tango dancers entertain at the top photo on this page). Café life is another religious aspect of Porteño existence and the Plaza’s abundant outside cafes leave just enough room for street performers and tango dancers:

    Tango clubs, galleries, and an antique market cling to the narrow cobblestone streets that edge Plaza Dorrego, BA’s oldest square. The turn-of-this-century crash of the peso made many Argentines pawn what they could -- so antiques abound. Many beautiful residences also line the square.


    Here’s a shot from the Plaza Dorrego showing one of the Parisian-like apartment buildings and the towers of the Church of Our Lady of Belen:




    Our Lady de la Belden peaking out at Plaza Dorrego


    Here’s as good of a shot of the front of the church as we could get, given
    the narrow street…


    A partial facade of Our Lady de la Belded


    …and an interior shot:


    The interior of Our Lady de la Belden in San Telmo


    While the walk was quite enjoyable and the day sunny, our timing was a little off. The quiet Saturday afternoons of San Telmo turn into a huge street fair every Sunday.

    Next time!


    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Typical bottom-of-the-blog stuff


    Internet Explorer users, want to see more? Then download the Firefox browser by clicking here – these pages work better in
    it and its more secure.


    Where are we now? Click here for an interactive map of Argentina.


    Ignore this unless you want to sample
    other travel blogs



    Labels:

    posted by Dick Schmitt @ 7:03 AM   0 comments

    Tuesday, March 14, 2006

    La Boca Barrio, Buenos Aires, Argentina





    A typical street scene in La Boca (click on any picture to see it enlarged)

    The many colors of La Boca


    Visited November 26, 2005


    Buenos Aires is a small town - geographically. It's only 77 square miles. About a fifth the size of Houston and about double the size of some towns you may have heard of such as Paris, France and Livonia, Michigan. (OK, if you're lucky, you know one of those towns well and have never been to the other.) Buenos Aires holds 2.8 Million people who tend to live most of their lives in their original neighborhoods, called barrios. BA has 47 of them and many of the colorful and historic barrios are within 1 or 2 miles of Plaza de Mayo. Here's some photos from our Saturday morning visit to the most colorful of them all: La Boca. La Boca is Spanish for "the mouth," as it was at the mouth of the Riachuelo River that most of the city's early settlers landed. Even today, Buenos Aires inhabitants, regardless of neighborhood, call themselves Porteños - people of the port.




    Not just the walls, but even the doors are brightly painted


    La Piccola Italia -- Little Italy


    On the Southwest side, La Boca was the port area before the port silted up. Many of its inhabitants trace their roots back to another port city, Genoa, Italy. In 1882, La Boca briefly "seceded" from Argentina and raised the Genoese flag until President Roca (remember that Bariloche guy!) personally tore it down. Nothing like a hands-on president. (If this seems too far-fetched, remember that Sicily thought it was going to become the 49th state of the US after WWII. After all, NYC is 700 miles closer to Italy than it is to Honolulu.) La Boca still retains its Italian flavor (in fact, about half of the European immigrants who flooded into the affluent Argentina of 1880-1920 came from Italy).


    Today La Boca is an artists colony/tourist trap by day and a tough neighborhood at night. Brightly painted shops, museums, and tenement houses line its main street Caminito, itself named for a tango song. The story goes that residents built using industrial scraps like corrugated zinc sheets from the nearby port and brightened the structures up with paint left over from the ships - hence the mélange of colors.




    We put on special camouflage to blend in





    We walked around in the bright morning sun, bought a painting, gave a donation to the local fireman in front of their statue:







    The volunteer fireman have had a history as colorful as La Boca's buildings. Chartered in 1884, they were forbidden to put out fires five years later by President Celman who was himself overruled by a successor. Besides fires, the volunteers performed admirably during the yellow fever outbreak and the periodic flooding of the Riachulo river. (They do a heck-of-a-job.) Today the fireman have the statue in a square dedicated to them at Lamadrid and Garibaldi Streets.





    Even in the hotbed of rebellion, San Martin gets his
    homage










    More of the same








    A quiet little park tucked into a street niche









    And a closeup


    Evita (top, center) came back to life to greet us



    A zinc corrugated building


    Box Seats


    La Boca is also famous for inventing the tango and has several active tango clubs. Most soccer fans know of it as home to great Boca Junior Athletic Club founded in 1905. Today they play in a 1940 stadium nicknamed "la Bombonera" since its floors resemble a box of chocolates.



    ----------------------------------------------------------------------


    Typical bottom-of-the-blog stuff


    Internet Explorer users, want to see more? Then download the Firefox browser by clicking here – these pages work better in
    it and its more secure.


    Where are we now? Click here for an interactive map of Argentina.


    Ignore this unless you want to sample
    other travel blogs


    Labels:

    posted by Dick Schmitt @ 10:52 AM   0 comments

    Sunday, March 12, 2006

    Buenos Aires – Plaza de Mayo Axis



    Casa Rosada: The Pink equivalent to the American White House

     

    Visited November 26, 2005

    Although today still recovering from the most significant economic crisis not caused by war or natural disaster, Argentina was once among the wealthiest nations of the world – around 1900 plus and minus a couple of decades. During that time, Buenos Aires took advantage of that wealth to plan two major axes rivaling the grand axes of Paris. These two were the Avenue 9 Julio described in another blog and its perpendicular: the Plazo de Mayo – Congress Axis down Avenida de Mayo. It takes vision or chutzpah (in Texas, we call it walking) to propose and execute such a grand design on an already functioning city. BA brought it off well!

    We saw the Plaza de Mayo twice, the first with our tour and later on a long walk to San Telmo which we’ll describe in another blog. Site of many turbulent events in Argentine history, this landscaped rectangle was calm and sparsely populated during our visits, except for some pigeons (maybe looking for a coup?) This square memorializes the 25 May 1810 ouster of the Spanish Viceroy and establishment of Buenos Aires provincial government. (Joseph Napoleon – you know who’s brother -- had taken the place of the king of Spain two years before so the provincials thought their mother country would be too distracted to fight back. A year later, the Pirámide de Mayo (pictured below) was erected; Liberty’s statue capped the pyramid later. Liberty holds a sword to remind the Argentines that they will have to fight for their freedom, mostly against their own

    On any given Thursday: Decorated for the next demonstration

    Named after that revolutionary month, Plaza de Mayo is the site of frequent demonstrations. Even with Argentina’s return to democracy, every Thursday afternoon (since 1977), the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo march to protest their children who “disappeared” (the desaparecidos) during the Dirty War (1976-1983) waged by the latest iteration of military junta against its own citizens. The mothers’ (and grandmothers’) white scarves bear the names of their missing offspring and are meant to symbolize diapers. (In a perverse Solomon-like twist, DNA tests now show that some desaparecido babies have emerged as adopted children of supporters of the regime.)

    Some of the other interesting events of the past include the 1945 demonstration that freed soon-to-be-strongman Peron from jail (and put him on the path to electoral victory) and the plaza bombardment ten years later by the country’s own air force. As recently as December 2001, bloody clashes forced the resignation – and helicopter departure -- of President de la Rua. These were tough times: in January 2002, the peso unhooked from the US dollar and quickly devalued to about 1/4 of its value (but made Argentina highly attractive to foreign tourists such as ourselves.) The poverty rate rose to 59%. But Argentina seems to be on its way back: Presently (2005) both inflation and unemployment are running at 12% , the poverty rate is down to pre-crisis levels at 38%-- but GDP, fueled by exports, is growing at 9%.

    Plaza de Mayo has been at the center of Buenos Aires (and later Argentine) government since its establishment in 1580. It was not always at the center of Buenos Aires, however. Originally the port was directly behind the square, but subsequent landfills have pushed the silver-brown Rio del la Plata further to the east.

    Let’s take a walk around the square starting with the presidential palace.

    The Pink House

    The Casa Rosada (Pink House) anchors the plaza to the east on the site of a military fort during colonial days. The Argentine president now works here but lives elsewhere. The photo at the top of the page shows the left balcony where Eva Peron lectured her devoted followers, (and Madonna mimicked her in the film Evita). The balcony also witnessed the declaration of the ill-fated 1982 Malvinas/Falkland war which brought down the junta that started it, greatly pleasing the Mothers of the Plaza and a lot of other Argentines.

    The neo-Italian Casa Rosada dates from 1894. Supposedly it is pink to reconcile two warring Argentine factions who were represented by red and white colors. (Should Americans paint the White House purple?) It is guarded by the Granaderos a Caballo regiment in the same uniforms they used in 1813. Here’s a bleached photo of the changing of the Granaderos at the Pink Palace:




    Changing of the Guard (but not the junta) at the Pink Palace

    Excuse the quality of this picture; a fence keeps photographers and others from getting too close to the Pink Palace.

    For want of a chicken in every pot

    Trekking counter-clockwise around the square, we see the National Bank of Argentina, a massive building containing a numismatic museum. The bank played a role in the events on the square. For instance, starting in 1991 when the Argentine peso was pegged 1:1 with the US dollar, it had to hold as many dollars as pesos in circulation since Argentines could present pesos and demand an even dollar exchange. After 1998 as the economy deteriorated, Argentines converted pesos to dollars which they sent out of the country, causing a bank run in 2001. The government then froze accounts causing the citizens to take to the streets in demonstrations with pots and pans called Cacerolazo – the Spanish name for stewpots. These escalated into violent attacks on banks.


    The National Bank

     

    The picture below is more typical of the square, which is landscaped as a park. The cathedral (our next destination) is at the right with the North Diagonal Avenue in the center. On the left is and edge of the new (at least compared to the cabildo which it replaced) city executive building built in 1902 in the belle époque style:


    A placid Plaza de Mayo

    The Cathedral

    Next to the banks is the Metropolitan Cathedral which lies at the Northwest edge of the Plaza de Mayo at Rivadavia Avenue, supposedly the longest avenue in the world. (With the 9 Julio Avenue being the widest in the world, you would think Argentines could give Texans a run for bragging rights).

    This 1745 church replaced the 1585 chapel, but its Greek-revival facade was added in 1829, giving the cathedra a most secular look:




    The 1829 façade of the Metropolitan Cathedral

     

    Here’s a close-up of the Cathedral’s pediment which shows the Old Testament story of Jacob meeting his successful son Joseph whom his siblings have sold into slavery in Egypt.



    A coat of a single color in this picture

    Here’s a view of the cathedral cupola; we’ll look underneath it in the picture after next:


    Cathedral exterior

    Inside, the church is a military shrine: Draped in his country’s flag, the remains of the Argentine George Washington --General Jose de San Martin -- (or is our San Martin George Washington?) lay under the cupola photographed above:

    Tomb of San Martin

    Here’s a close-up of the statue in front of his tomb with a listing of his famous battles for independence:


    Look closely and you'll see his resume in marble

    And finally the view from the nave and a closer-up of the main altar:




    The Metropolitan Cathedral from the nave...


    ...and the Sanctuary

    Plaza de Mayo is intersected by two diagonal avenues, this one is Diagonal Norte which leads to the Obelisk and the Plaza Lavalle discussed in another section of this travelblog.

     


    Looking down Diagonal Norte to the obelisk

    Fallen Arches


    The next building in our counter-clockwise progression is the cabildo (town hall) -- or at least a remnant of it. The original 1751 building had five arches on either side instead of the two shown. (the Diagonal Norte and the Avenue de Mayo leading to the house of Congress ate the other arches on each side). The only colonial building on the square, the Cabildo was restored in 1939; it is now a museum of colonial history with an arts fair on its back patio.

     


    The Cabildo (right) and the City Legislature
    To the left of the Cabildo in the picture above is the tower of the Buenos Aires legislative building.
    BA is an independent town with its own legislature of sixty deputies, probably enough to form a posse if not pass laws.
    The city is made up of 48 districts which evolved from the parishes set up by the church.

    To the left (west) of the legislative building is the second diagonal, Diagonal Sur (South) also called Avenue Roca after their general/flag designer we discussed in the Bariloche blog. Roca’s extermination of the indigenous people had much to do with making BA the most European city in South America (with an assist for significant Italian and Spanish emigration around the turn of the 20th century.) Boca’s Diagonal Sur is much more drab than the Parisian-like Diagonal Norte that leads to the obelisk.

    Avenida de Mayo

    Let’s proceed up the street just to the right of the Cabildo, the equivalent of Washington, D.C. Pennsylvania Avenue. It’s called Avenue de Mayo and it connects the Pink Palace with the Argentine Congress. Started in 1883, it took 15 years to complete, pretty quick by BA standards. It is the East-West axis corresponding to the North-South axis of Avenue 9 Julio. (Ironically Avenue de Mayo opened officially on 9 July 1994). In 1913, Latin America’s first subway started operating beneath it. Here’s a photo of that first subway. People in those days looked just like some of our tour members including a dead ringer for Jane on the right.

    Where are we? On the subway

    Plaza De Los Dos Congresos

    The subway and Avenue de Mayo end at the Congress Plaza; actually several plazas interrupt the Avenue, each more elaborate than the one before. Here’s the first plaza with the Congressional dome in the background:


    The first plaza with the capitol in sight

    Followed by an elaborate neoclassical allegory sculpted by the Belgian Jules Lagae called the Monument to Two Congresses:




    The Monument to Two Congresses

    And then the Italian-Classical Congressional Palace itself built in 1906.




     



    The Congress


    (Excuse this picture, the palace does not need foundation repair and the sky is not really falling in the upper left corner – the fault is in my cut and paste skills when merging photos).

    San Francisco

    That ends the second grand axis -- Plaza de Mayo down its avenue to the house of Congress. Let's now backtrack to the Plaza de Mayo. Looking south down Defensa street, one can see the towers of the Basilica and Convent of San Francisco:


    Looking south from the Plaza de Mayo to the Basilica of San Francisco

    Here’s a closer view:




    As you can see, the reconstruction on the 1911 Bavarian baroque façade kept us from going inside.
    (Not really, we just weren’t there during the brief time it was open to the public).
    We did get this picture of the towers:



    The twin towers of San Francisco

    …and the exterior of the apse:



    A "Jesuit" dome

    The neo-Italian Renaissance structure designed by a Jesuit architect dates from 1754.
    By not going inside, we missed seeing second largest tapestry in the world honoring (who else) St. Francis; the work is by the Argentine artist Horacio Butler; it also contains one of the best archival libraries in the city.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Typical bottom-of-the-blog stuff

    Internet Explorer users, want to see more? Then download the Firefox browser by clicking here – these pages work better in it and its more secure.



    Ignore these links unless you want to check other blogs on these topics:

    Labels:

    posted by Dick Schmitt @ 1:50 PM   0 comments

    Monday, March 06, 2006

    Buenos Aires -- Teatro Colon and Surroundings



    Teatro Colon as seen from 9 Julio Avenue



    The Buenos Aires Opera House and Surroundings

    Visited November 29, 2005

    We spent the better part of three days in Buenos Aires (BA), just enough to whet our appetite for this diverse and exciting city. One morning we trekked over to the Teatro Colón, one of the greatest opera venues in the world. (While we were in BA, the opera performers were on strike, much to the consternation of some of our tour mates who had tickets. However, the opera house tours in both languages were fully booked and the Teatro Colón brimming with activity including dress making, ballet practice, set painting, etc.)

    This is the second Teatro Colón (Why opera houses get named after Columbus is beyond me). In only 30 years, BA outgrew its first Teatro Colon as over 50 operas could be performed in this opera-crazed city in a single year. After twenty years of construction, Teatro Colón opened in 1908 when BA was a city made wealthy after railroads linked its
    great port with the fertile pampas. As construction dragged on, one of the Italian architects died and the other was assassinated. The theater is reputed to have perfect acoustics but we couldn’t tell when we were ushered into the dark hall that seats about 2,500 in three rows of boxes plus four general seating tiers with standing room for an additional 500 people..

    The lobby displays a model of the building which makes it easier to study the Italian Renaissance and German architectural influences on its two Italian designers; some French finishing touches were added by the Belgian architect who took over in 1904. (Architects
    call this hodge-podge: eclectic. Electism appears to particulary affect opera venues as I was reminded each morning at my Paris subway stop – the Opera Garnier.


    A model theatre: Teatro Colon

    The second picture shows a proposed landscaping addition, Plaza Estado Vaticano, intended to submerge the parking and create a park. Here’s a couple closer-ups of the cast awning at the lower center of the above picture:





    Two views of the grill work in the Colon Teatro's entrance awning

    Inside, photos were verboten except for the entrance hall with its Veronese marble.

    Here’s a couple of shots. The first is of an upper intermission hall…

    Lobby view of Colon Teatro

    …and the area over the main entrance:


    Inside the Colon Teatro's main entrance

    El Salón de los Bustos

    Near the entrance is “El Salón de los Bustos” (Where are we now? We’re in the Hall of the Busts. In Houston, we are thinking about renaming the Enron building with that title). Here’s two famous bustos. I can identify the one on the right, but who’s that on the left?

    Jane is busting out all over

    Here’s a hint, it’s one of these dead white Europeans all of which have their busts in the hall: Beethoven, Bellini, Bizet, Gounod, Mozart, Rossini, Verdi or Wagner

    The entrance hall contains marble from Italy (Carrara), Belgium, and Portugal and includes this stain glass canopy to which the shaky photographer fails to do justice.



    Stain-glassed sky light at Colon Teatro


    At the end of our tour, we were ushered into the Salón Dorado on the same level to enjoy a very short violin recital in this French decorated hall patterned a little on Versailles.

    A 1970s expansion created a virtual opera factory by tunneling under nearby streets. Below Colon Teatro we saw a beehive of performing art support activities including ballet practice in a circular mirrored hall, the painting of huge scenery backdrops, costume sewing, vocal rehearsals -- as well as storage rooms for shoes, wigs, and costumes from just about every opera staged here. The theatre also contains a library (with every opera program since it opened in 1908), an experimental center to encourage modern performing arts in Argentina (Centro de Experimentación del Teatro Colón), and (you guessed it!) a small but jammed gift shop. The theatre also supports several standing orchestras and ballet companies, including some limited to those under 25 years of age. Pretty much all of the big names in music have appeared here (and continue to do so) since the place opened nearly 100 years ago.

    Park Lavalle

    Teatro Colon, backs into Avenue 9 July and sits on the site of the first railroad station. (Remember the train in the museum in Lujan?). The theater’s entrance is on Libertad Street on the Park Lavalle, a landscaped square surrounded by serious buildings like itself. Here’s a picture of the Opera House from the other side of the square. (It looks like it’s on “El Streeto de la busses” here):


    Teatro Colon as seen Park Lavalle

    Here’s a view of Park Lavalle seen from the opera entrance:

    Park Lavalle as seen from Teatro Colon

    Park Lavalle contains a military statue (why are we not surprised). This one has fourteen sides, one for each Argentine state when it was constructed. It honors general and governor Juan Lavalle, best known for opposing (and losing to) an early Argentine dictator.

    General Lavalle's statue in his square

    Here’s another view of the statue with another serious government building kiddy-corner from the opera:


    Plaza Lavalle view of the Palace of Justice

    Directly across the street from the opera is a school named after President Roca whose life we mused upon while in the Bariloche square:

    General Roca's school facing Lavalle Square

    Here’s another view of the plaza taken from the side entrance to the opera house. In a paparazzo coup, we
    snapped a famous diva and several BA taxis to pose for us:

    Jane at the opera house side

    A street from the edge of the two block long Plaza Lavalle, leads to the obelisk at Plaza de la República.





    The obelisk (and McDonald's) as seen from the approach from Park Lavalle



    The very wide 9 de Julio Avenue

    We walked down this street to get to the Obelisk, crossing what the Argentines consider to be the widest avenue in the world: 9 de Julio Avenue (Avenue 9 July), named after the Argentine independence day in 1816). Much of turn-of-that-century Buenos Aires looks like Paris, mimicking the five story limestone buildings that populate much of the European capital’s close-in neighborhoods. However, Avenue 9 July is way too wide to be Parisian – About 460 feet with 14 traffic lanes in what is really 4 separate roads divided by medians. BA is laid out in a grid and the Porteños devoted a whole block to the avenue making it a city block wide.

    Here’s a photo of the middle lanes of 9 de Julio Avenue complete with its buckle-up sign and view of the
    obelisk (You may need to click to enlarge this picture to read the sign):

    Buckle up: the grand avenue 9 de Julio

    Planned in 1888, construction on the avenue started in 1937 and completed in the 1960s, demonstrating that Houston contractors are not the slowest when it come to finishing a road.

    Obelisco de Buenos Aires

    Phallic Pun Warning -- proceed at your own risque

    Our last picture shows Buenos Aires’ Obelisk which sits smack dab in the center of Plaza de la República on 9 de Julio Avenue. The Plaza marks the site of the first unfurling of the Argentine flag (pop quiz: remember General Manuel Belgrano on the Luján page?) The obelisk was erected (what other verb can we use) to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the city. In fact, the city founded in 1536 had to be abandoned 5 years later due to a pesky Indian problem. Fortunately for the Spanish but not for the indigenous peoples, the 1580 re-founding of BA took hold. The 201 foot tall obelisk was built in 4 weeks in 1936 (obviously not by the people who built the 9 de Julio Avenue). Our Obelisk in Washington, D.C. is over twice as tall but took 36 years to complete. We Texans, of course, did much better, building our art deco San Jacinto Obelisk near Houston in only 3 years. We don’t need to tell you that it is taller than its little brothers inside-the-beltway or in BA. By coincidence, San Jacinto’s construction started the same year as the Obelisco de Buenos Aires. (And all this 62 years before Viagra hit the market).

    Is that an obelisk in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

    As a symbol of Buenos Aires, the obelisk gets a lot of iconic augmentation such as signs and coverings. In fact, we missed one by only 2 days – the celebration of 2005 World AIDS Day. On December 1 BA draped its obelisk in (you guessed it) a large pink condom.



    Safe Sox? -- How BA honored World Aids Day 2005

    Got Google Earth yet? If not, down load it here and then try this bookmark of the Opera House area (click on "see map in Google Earth")

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------




    Typical bottom-of-the-blog stuff


    Internet Explorer users, want to see more? Then download the free Firefox browser by clicking here – these pages display better in Foxfire and its more secure than that Microsoft thing.




    Where are we now? Click here for an interactive map of Argentina.



    ----------------------------------------------------------------------




    Ignore these links unless you want to see other bloggers views on:

    Labels:

    posted by Dick Schmitt @ 12:18 PM   0 comments

    Thursday, February 23, 2006

    Luján , Argentina


    Rising 300 feet from the flat North Pampas countryside, Lujan’s Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Luján honors the patron saint of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Click on this and all pictures to enlarge.


    Luján, Argentina
    Visited November 27, 2005

    On Sunday, the tour headed out of Buenos Aires to sample the North Pampas countryside. Our first stop was about 35 miles away at the cathedral (really basilica) city of Luján, named for conquistador Pedro Luján, whom the Indians killed here in a 1536 skirmish. Every October, up to a million Argentine pilgrims walk the same route from BA to Luján as part of a religious festival. Even in November, we saw plenty of pilgrims here: 5 million people visit this city of about 70,000 every year. It seemed like that many were crowding the basilica for late Sunday morning mass.

    Argentines call Luján La Capital de la Fe, the Capital of the Faith. Our Lady of Luján serves as the patron saint of Argentina as well as Uruguay and Paraguay – three very heavily Catholic countries. Judging from the wares of the many merchants who lined the path from the parking lot to the Basilica, she’s also the patron saint of religious kitsch – but Luján has lots of competition for that title, including St. Peter’s in Rome. (Do you still have those John-Paul II bottle openers I gave out for Christmas one year? You know who you are and you never know when I may drop in for a visit. Better shine them up!)

    The Many Shrines to Nuestra Senora de Luján

    The story of the shrine’s founding starts in 1630 with a caravan to Santiago del Estero. Two days out of Buenos Aires, a team of oxen become paralyzed while attempting a crossing of the River Lujan. Boxes get unloaded one-by-one until the oxen finally move. When the culprit package is opened, its contents reveal a terra-cotta statue of the Immaculate Conception about 18 inches tall. Figuring they’ve just received a message from on high, the caravan deposits the statue at the house of Don Rosendo de Oramas, about 15 miles away. Rosendo eventually builds a small chapel to accommodate the hordes from Buenos Aires traipsing out to see the miraculous icon. A village to serve the religo-touristas grows around the chapel; (the bottle opener has not been invented yet); the settlement is declared the town of Luján in 1755.

    As the number of visitors increases, authorities decide to build a larger church. In 1685 the Chapel of Montalbo, apparently a simple adobe building, is completed. It takes its name from a priest who was cured of his asthma by the statue and stayed to become the pastor/builder. (As we shall see, the statue is quick to cure potential developers (does Donald Trump need a patron saint?) As crowds continue to increase, a later attempt to replace the adobe chapel meets with disaster as the new building collapses due to an engineering miscalculation. (Apparently the statues miraculous powers are confined to biology; physics is another story.)



    If you are used to seeing grey European cathedrals, the clean stone from Colón is refreshing



    Later, a competent architect named Don Juan de Lezica y Torrezur is cured of his asthma by the virgin, and from 1754-1763 successfully completes a structure on the site of the current sanctuary. (Apparently there is breathing room in Luján.)


    Nuestra Senora’s Boswell

    All goes well for another century or so until a French priest, Jorge M. Salvaire, is assigned to the parish in the 1880s. (Fr. Salvaire first visits Luján in 1871 while fleeing the yellow fever attacking Buenos Aires). On a later trip to convert Indians, he contracts smallpox and promises to write the history of the Virgin of Lujan and build an edifice to support her cult if he survives. An Indian immediately shows up and helps him recover. (We had an Inca-ling that would happen.)

    Salvaire’s two volume history spreads knowledge of the cult far and wide and creates demand for the French neo-gothic Basilica which stands tall (over 300-foot-high twin towers) in the flat Pampas today. (Fr. Salvaire starts the building but, unfortunately, does not live to see its completion. No wonder, it takes over 45 years to complete in 1937.)



    Four statues stand on each side of the Rose Window and four more wrap around to the other side of the twin towers --16 in all -- representing the twelve apostles and four evangelists. Can you find St. Peter holding the keys to heaven?

    The French architect Ulderico Courtois creates a thin, acute-angled design using pink stone from the river border town of Colón.

    Inside, we found the basilica’s 100-yard-long nave jammed with Argentines participating in varying degrees in one of the eight Sunday masses. Around the edges swirled masses of tourists (that would be us) circling the basilica in an attempt to get to the small statue at its center. (We didn’t make it to the statue due to the crowds; ditto for the collection of virgin statues in the crypt below.)


    Plaza Belgrano – the other Luján statue

    Plaza Belgrano view of the museum complex

    In front of the Basilica, flanked by the arcaded museum complex, is the sparsely furnished Plaza Belgrano. OK, it’s empty of permanent structures except for the requisite Argentine military statue (even in a city made famous by religion). This equestrian statue honors Manuel Belgrano, sort of a combination of our Washington, Jefferson, and Betsy Ross. A general during the Argentine war of independence, he designed the country’s flag (which, unfortunately, is not at all like the Texas flag). He went on to help with the Declaration of Independence in 1816. He was less successful in helping with the new constitution and was nearly laughed out of the chamber when he proposed a constitutional monarchy headed by the Incas. (More typical was General Roca --his graffiti-smeared statue protects Bariloche; he made it to bronze by crowning natives with more violent means).

    History has generally been kinder to Belgrano than life; the many harsh campaigns ruined his health and he died in obscurity and poverty at age 50. Besides his statue here, he appears on the Argentine 10 Peso note; Argentines celebrate the anniversary of his death each year as their flag day. But not all Belgrano memorials have been as successful, trivia buffs will remember the Brits sank the only Argentine cruiser, the ARA General Belgrano, nee USS Phoenix, resulting in the most serious loss of life during the 1982 Falklands/Islas Malvinas War.

    General Belgrado is all spruced up here but had a tough life of campaigning and died in poverty and obscurity at age 50




    Movin’ on to the Complejo Museográfico

    The Complejo Museográfico Enrique Udaondo (the museum complex is named for a former director) repopulates the old cabildo (town hall) and viceroy palace buildings with several museums. Here’s a photo of the long arcarde, added during an 1918 restoration:


    The 1918 Arcade added to the old Lujan Cabildo to create the museum complex

    Beyond the arcade lies the Museo de Transporte which we visited. At the entrance is this recreation of the type of cart used by Argentines to tame their pampas around 1815, about the time they were throwing off the Spanish yoke themselves:
    The wagon that tamed the Pampas

    The museum abounds in well preserved carriages…





    …including this fancy carriage which belonged to General Bartolomé Mitre, who served as president of Argentina during the time of the American civil war:




    The carriage is on the left; on the right was our Buenos Aires guide, the ebullient Pedro Rafael Porqueras.

    One of the museum’s showpieces is the British-made La Porteña, the first locomotive used in Argentina; it traveled from what is today the Buenos Aires opera house to the port (hence its name) from 1857 through1891.




    First Locomotive in Argentina


    Army Surplus: La Porteña travelled about 10K as the first train in Argentina -- The Brits built it to help in the Crimean war which ended before it could get there

    What most interested me was the German Dornier hydroplane, the first plane to fly trans-Atlantic from Argentina, in this case, to Spain in 1926. Note the crank to start the engine!



    Here’s a somewhat wider view of the monster (click on it to enlarge):



    Transatlantic planes were probably more uncomfortable then than even the smashed-seat cabin that American Airlines used to crate us from Buenos Aires back to Miami at the end of our trip (but who’s complaining?) Here’s a map of the many hops needed in 1926 to get the seaplane to Spain:



    Our final museum picture is that of the popemobile, used when John Paul II came to Argentina to try to convince the military dictatorship to end the 1982 Falklands/Islas Malvinas War.





    The Popemobile used for John Paul's 1982 visit

    John Paul's fishbowl on wheels

    Horsin’ around

    After a crowded Sunday morning in a church town, we traveled to the North Pampas La Rosada ranch for an Argentine barbeque under this 300-year-old oak tree:



    Besides food and wine, we received a demonstration of the accouterments of the Argentine Gaucho. Here we learn about the many layers of saddle blankets.



    At the end of the demonstration, Houston’s biggest animal lover got to pump the flesh:




    Fellow Travelers
    Finally we took our only tour group picture and got back on the bus to Buenos Aires; here’s us, 31 of our closest friends, and a highly unused soccer ball:


    Haven’t had enough – check out the Lujan pictures on the cutting room floor.


    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Typical bottom-of-the-blog stuff
    Internet Explorer users, want to see more? Then download the free Firefox browser by clicking here – these pages display better in Foxfire and its more secure than that Microsoft thing.

    Where are we now? Click here for an interactive map of Argentina.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Ignore these links unless you want to see other bloggers views on:



    Labels:

    posted by Dick Schmitt @ 8:14 AM   0 comments

    Friday, February 17, 2006

    Bariloche, Argentina

    After two days of cold and overcast weather, the bright sun greeted us on our last morning in Bariloche with this sparkling view of lake Nahuel Huapi and the Andes beyond. (Click on this and all pictures to enlarge.)

    San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina

    Visited November 24 and 25, 2005

    Need a map? Click here, but be ready to turn your monitor upside down (or stand on your head).

    Our first (and only full) day in Bariloche suffered from the cold and drizzle that assaulted us during the previous day’s lake crossing from Chile into Argentina. However, the second day provided us with a sunny, if blustery, morning to explore this overly-expanding town in an absolutely gorgeous location.




    Looking North across Lago Nahuel Huapi to the Andes from Bariloche's port

    Architectural Challenges
    San Carlos de Bariloche (population around 100,000 and about 2300 feet above sea level) sits in the middle of Argentina’s oldest national park: Nahuel Huapi. You don’t find a name like that easily, so it was reused for the volcano/glacier formed lake. Bariloche sits on the southeastern shore of the 62 mile long Lake Nahuel Huapi. Founded in 1902, Bariloche went nowhere (it’s hard when you’re a piece of land even with a nearby volcano) until the Ferrocarril Roca railroad constructed a line in 1934. Previously, some Swiss residents had constructed alpineish chalets. With the railroad came architect Ezequiel Bustillo who in 1940 designed the civic center buildings, being inspired by buildings in Bern, Switzerland. Bustillo architected several other local buildings including the Bariloche cathedral and some upscale hotels, helping give the town the nickname of the “Argentine Switzerland.”

    Unfortunately, since Bustillo’s heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, rapid (rabid?) growth has caused bland high-rise timeshares and hotels to obscure some of the quaint neighborhoods. Here’s a couple typical downtown views where modern architecture struggles to pay homage to Bariloche’s middle-European architecture roots or abandons any attempt at style to build high and cheap.








































    Whether good or bad architecture, Bariloche's position -- smack dab in the middle of Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapias -- creates the perfect base for four-season outdoor excursions. Nearby skiing, hiking, fly-fishing, rafting, etc., make Bariloche Argentina’s second most visited city. In fact, Bariloche's name is derived from the Indian word for a secret mountain pass over the Andes--it's always been the gateway to the Lakes region. The town is also a center for scientific research but we didn't have time to pursue any of that.

     Squares on the Square

    Our first excursion found our tour stumbling through the great chocolate shops and then stopping at the civic center. Laid out by Ernesto de Estrada, the square sports several Bustillo-architected buildings now used as the police station, former post office, customs office (now the Museum of Patagonia), tourist office, library, etc. Bustillo built with wood from South America’s cypress-like Alerce trees to trim the dark green-gray toba stone from nearby Mt Carbón).

    Here are some shots from around the square:



    Supposedly at noon and 6PM, this clock tower sports 4 figures representing the area’s history including an Indian, a missionary, a conquistador, and a laborer. As you can see, we were an hour early and, with a plane to catch, missed the noon showing. (Tempus fugit). Here’s another civic center building:





    Bully Pulpits anyone?

    In a similar building on this square is the excellent Patagonian Natural History Museum named after Perito Moreno, a great naturalist who traveled this area with ex president Teddy Roosevelt in 1913. Moreno eventually donated the land that became the first Argentine National Park. (Totally gratuitous s(n)ide remark: Several other American presidents have shown up here including Eisenhower (who signed the Declaration of Bariloche in 1960) and Bill and Hillary (did I just name two more?) in 1997. The Clintons were discussing emissions and probably left sufficient hot air although not enough to warm us up on our visit.) (Was that enough parentheses for a parenthetical expression?)

    The square sported a few wood carvings such as this:
























    Wisely de Estrada laid out the square so that the lake and mountains are always in view. Here, a not-so-wooden statuesque Indian guide posed for us:





















    Bariloche rocks

    The official name of Estrada’s square is “Expedicionarios del Desierto” named to honor the desert military campaign led by general Julio Argentino Roca (famous enough to get a railroad named after him? Or maybe a whole country?) Roca’s statue now guards the square from pigeons and wisecrackers (is that just a smart white guy?).




    Roca’s 1879 campaign pushed out the indigenous people, such as the Toba, from the Pampas. (The “push” was not always gentle and some historians call it     genocide). From the looks of Roca’s statue, the natives have returned to rewrite history with spray paint. (In our country, some call that art.) After “subduing” the indigenous people, Roca later served twice as Argentinean president (who hasn’t?)

    Besides the spectacular blues of the lake and grey of the mountains, local fauna greens the edges of the square such as this monkey puzzle tree:
























    and this huge holly bush:

























    No tourist trip to the square would be complete without a cheesy picture with the St. Bernard dogs. While we passed on posing with the dogs, we snuck a picture anyway (can you find the whiskey keg? if not, click on the picture to enlarge it:



















    Through the glass shakily

    After our visit to the civic center, we took a very windy walk along the eastern edge of the lake shore ending at the neo-gothic 1946 Cathedral:




    The Argentine national park system owns the cathedral, called the Cathedral of Nestra Senora de Nahuel Huapi (got to reuse that name!). Bustillo also architected this building, providing it with 50 stain glass windows depicting religious iconery in Patagonian settings. Unfortunately, the cold weather must have shaken my usual steady hand as this was the best picture I could get of the interior:





    (Bariloche’s most famous ski area is also called the Cathedral, after the mountain Cerro Catedral; obviously Bariloche has an excess of natural beauty but a shortage of names). In front of this cathedral is a grassy park:



















    This “Park Italia” contains a statue frequently found in Italy of the founders of Rome: Romulus and Remus being suckled by the wolf who raised them. We're not sure why this is Park Italia other than to pay homage to the large Italian-Argentine population. Italians are one of the three major European groups to settle Argentina (along with the Germans and Spanish). Today the vast majority of Argentines trace their descent from Europe.





    Port Views

    Returning westward towards the civic center, we passed the port: Puerto San Carlos with these magnificent lake/Andes view:




    Here’s a panoramic of the same view to give you an idea of the sweeping vista. (You’ll probably have to click on the picture to see anything.)




    We ended our Bariloche visit with a trip to the airport – eight miles away but through arid terrain quite different from the lush rain forest feel of the rest of Bariloche. Soon we were in Buenos Aires, 1005 miles away.

    And now for something completely different…
    Ready for a quiz of obscure and totally gratuitous facts? Which Disney film was inspired by the landscape and fauna of the Bariloche and Nahuel Huapi setting? Give up -- (Oh, Deer, it was Bambi!)
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Typical bottom-of-the-blog stuff
    Internet Explorer users, want to see more? Then download the Firefox browser by clicking here – these pages work better in it and its more secure.

    Where are we now? Click here for an interactive map of Argentina.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------




    Labels:

    posted by Dick Schmitt @ 8:59 AM   0 comments