2# The best neighbourhoods for students in Buenos Aires

Part 2.

Now that we have delimited the search, let’s take a closer look to La Capital. The city of Buenos Aires is composed of 42 official neighborhoods. On one side, the city is delimited by the Rio de la Plata, the other three sides are delimited by the province. The 42 official neighborhoods all differ quite from eachother and we really suggest that you make a couple of Sunday tours to get to know some of them regardless of where you will live.

Lets try to come to some kind of categorization:

1. central Buenos Aires

Watch out: the neighborhoods which fall under this category are generally seen as the centre. However, despite that name they do not typically refer to the zone where you will find the most leisure possibilities as you may expect to finf according to the name. Center here merely refers to the economical and financial function this part of BA plays. You will find this zone to be quite dead in weekends. Barrio’s here are: Montserrat, Sant Nicolas, etc. The only exception is San Telmo, which has its own charm and dynamics and is alive all week long.

2. ‘prosperous’ Buenos Aires.

This part of Buenos Aires is roughly composed of the barrio’s lying next to the Rio de la Plata. First there is Puerto Madero, the most expensive part of the city. 7 years ago this part did not exist, until the city started converting it into a real neigborhood. Here you will find some of the most expensive clubs and restaurants and oh yeah rents. Then upstream a bit is the barrio of Recoleta. A true residential area for the rich, prosperous and conservative. This somewhat posh area boasts some of the most important tourist spots of BA (like the recoleta cemetary). Then comes the barrio of Palermo. Also a residential area but not always as posh as Recoleta depending of the part of Palermo you are referring to. Palermo chico is indead very posh and expensice, but Palermo Soho is not. Palermo Soho is the preferred place for young travellers, because of its bohemien atmosphere and numerous bars, restaurants, design shops etc. Palermo Hollywood is upcoming. It lies next to SoHo only divided by a railway track. This is called Hollywood because of the large number of TV studios and production companies which are based here.

3. ‘hidden Buenos Aires’

The barrios in this category are residential by nature, have good (subway) connections with the rest of town and have a traditional barrio life, with many good local restaurants and bars. These barrio’s will not be on the list of a typical Lonely Planet Traveller but hey, that may even increase there charm. Barrios are: Almagro, Caballito and Boedo.

4. ‘the western dock lands’

Rough areas, close to the docks. These are barrios such as La Boca and Barracas.

5. ‘upcoming’ Buenos Aires

The barrios in this category all have a bit the same characterstics as Palermo: some cobble stoned streets, low buildings, residential atmosphere, many trees alongside the streets. They differ however that they have not been discovered yet by the foreign masses, so one could say it has all the advantages but none of the disadvantages. Barrios to which we refer are: Chacaritas, Collegiales and Villa Crespo.

Now that we have made an introduction of the city and its neighborhoods, we are ready to describe a bit further. This will be done in our next posts!