Mar del Plata

The Central Casino and Hotel Provincial, both from the late 1930s, stand opposite one another with the seafront Rambla between them. Two stone-carved sea lions sit at its end, the city's photo spot. Summer evenings bring one street act after another.

A fishing port where yellow-orange wooden boats are tied up tightly along the quays. Seafood restaurants cluster in the arcade at the harbour gate, and tables go fast in the evening. Mornings, with boats coming and going, show nets being mended.

Beside a breakwater inside the port, male sea lions lie heaped together, watched up close through a wire fence. Their stench and roaring give the place away from far off. When boats come in, the animals pile in for fish thrown overboard.

A water tower built like a castle on a hilltop in 1943, still supplying water to the city. A lift and stairs reach the lookout at its top over coastline and town. Entry is paid, and a visit is booked ahead on the website of OSSE, the water utility.

The timber summer house of the writer Victoria Ocampo, put up from prefabricated parts shipped from England. It is now a cultural centre, with performances and exhibitions in the garden. The garden trees cast wide shade, good for a rest on a summer afternoon.

A quiet residential area of stone and timber villas built by the well-off in the mid twentieth century. Its name comes from the Los Troncos chalet, faced with logs. Most are private homes, so you look from outside the walls as you walk.

A broad beach south of downtown, where beach clubs renting tents and chairs follow one another along the sand. Many families book the same tent for the whole summer, so in January a single day is hard to get. The sea stays fairly cold even in summer.

A neo-Gothic cathedral facing Plaza San Martin, its windows glazed with stained glass from France. Finished as the twentieth century began, it grew up with the resort. The square adjoins the pedestrian street downtown, so dropping in is easy.

A lake 20 minutes inland by car to the west, ringed by woods and lawns for weekend picnics. Anglers fish for pejerrey from its shore. Tea houses and small farms gather in the nearby Sierra de los Padres hills.

First held in 1954, it is Latin America's only festival accredited for competition by the international film producers' federation. Every November the city's cinemas become its venues. Tickets are cheap, so popular screenings sell out early that morning.

A provincially run museum of contemporary art along the northern seafront avenue, housed in what look like stacked white boxes. Its big halls rotate installations by Argentine contemporary artists. Holidaymakers pile in on days when rain spoils the beach.

A white lighthouse banded in red where the beaches run out to the south, its lamp first lit as the nineteenth century closed. The navy runs it, so entry is not always possible. Sand in front of it stretches broader and emptier than downtown.

A stone tower built like a medieval castle on the coastal rocks, now home to an ice cream shop and a beach club among other tenants. The arched bridge joining it to the seafront road is the photo spot, looking down on waves breaking against the rocks below.

Leaving town southward on Route 11, earthen cliffs rise behind the beaches. Little coves between them hide uncrowded sand, popular with surfers. The cliff edges crumble easily, so do not stand too close.