Buenos Aires

Four thousand six hundred and ninety one marble tombs stand along narrow lanes like a small town. Some have glass doors on the vault, so the coffins show through.

Dock workers painted the tin houses with leftover ship paint, which is why no two match. The lane runs barely 100 metres with tango dancers working both sides.

Counted among the finest halls for sound, it stacks seven levels of seating. The top tier is cheap but the stage is hard to see, so people go for the sound alone.

Every Sunday antique stalls fill 1.5 kilometres of cobbled street. Silver, soda siphons and old photographs take up much of the trade.

The presidential house is painted pink and several explanations compete over why. Its balcony has served as the stage for political speeches.

A theatre built in 1919 became a bookshop with shelves standing where the seats were. The stage serves as a cafe and the ceiling painting was left in place.

A lake, a rose garden and a Japanese garden run together in one district. At the weekend the roads close to cars and go to cyclists and runners.

Fourteen lanes make it too wide to cross at once, and the central islands hold the waiting. An obelisk of 67 metres rises where the lanes divide.

An hour north the river splits into thousands of islands. Houses are reached by boat, and post and groceries arrive the same way.

This is not a show for visitors but a room where residents come to dance tango. A glance across the floor is how an invitation is made, so pairs form without a word.

Palermo's museum of modern Latin American art, opened in 2001 around collector Eduardo Costantini's holdings. A Frida Kahlo self-portrait and Tarsila do Amaral's Abaporu are the star pieces. The ground-floor cafe can be used without a museum ticket.

The national art museum, in a red building within walking distance of Recoleta Cemetery. European masters, Rodin sculpture and nineteenth-century Argentine painting hang side by side. Entry costs nothing, so adding the cemetery fills half a day neatly.

A giant metal flower spreading six stainless-steel petals above a park pool. Architect Eduardo Catalano donated it and designed the petals to open and close with the sun. Many people come for photos at dusk when the red lights come on.

A waterfront district where old red-brick port warehouses became restaurants and offices. Santiago Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer swings round to let boats through. Every street here is named after a woman.

Wetland where reed beds and woods grew on their own over construction rubble dumped into the river. It lies just east of Puerto Madero, so birdwatching happens with towers at your back. Walk to the riverside path and the water runs to the horizon like a sea.

The central square where the Casa Rosada faces the old Cabildo. Mothers searching for children who vanished under the dictatorship have marched around it on Thursdays. Their white headscarf emblem is painted on the paving.

Opened on Avenida de Mayo in 1858, it claims the title of the city's oldest cafe. Writers and tango singers once filled its tables under a stained-glass ceiling, and the room is unchanged. An inner hall stages evening tango, and a queue at the door is common.

An office building whose floors follow Dante's Divine Comedy, from hell through purgatory to heaven. Visits run only as guided tours, climbing all the way up to the beacon in its tower. From there Avenida de Mayo runs in one straight line to Congress.

Boca Juniors' home ground in the La Boca neighbourhood. One stand rises almost vertically, and on match days the chanting is said to shake the concrete. On other days the stadium museum includes a walk out into the stands.

A folk fair held mostly on Sundays in the old slaughterhouse district out in the far west of the city. Gauchos gallop to spear a small ring, and folk dances fill the stage. The food stalls lean northern, selling locro alongside the empanadas.

Around Plaza Serrano, low old houses have turned into clothes shops and bars. Large murals cover the walls, so simply walking the blocks is the sightseeing. Dinner rarely starts before 9 pm, and the streets stay quiet until then.

Uruguay's old Portuguese colonial town sits across the River Plate, slightly over an hour away by ferry. UNESCO lists its quarter of cobbled lanes and low houses as World Heritage. It crosses a border: passports get checked, and ferries are best booked early.

A former department store on the Florida pedestrian street, now a shopping mall. Murals by five Argentine painters cover the central dome. People wander in without shopping simply to gaze at the ceiling from the upper railing.

A museum of Eva Peron's life in an old Palermo mansion. Her dresses, film of her speeches and records of the foundation she ran are on show. Pair it with the Duarte family tomb at Recoleta and the story joins up.

The old central post office turned cultural centre, renamed from Centro Cultural Kirchner to Palacio Libertad in 2024. Its Blue Whale concert hall hangs at the core, and the roof terrace looks over Puerto Madero. Many shows are free with tickets online.