It was expected that the headline “The Hand of God” would appear again after the appointment of new Pope Francis, Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The celebrations went on through the night in his homeland after white smoke from the Vatican indicated the 76-year-old from Buenos Aires would lead the world’s catholics – the first ever Pope from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.
It’s good news for Argentina as a tourist destination – and BA who run direct flights from Heathrow to the capital – as holidaymakers are bound to want to follow in Pope Francis’s holy footsteps. Visit Buenos Aires and you can also meet a lookalike of the original Hand of God (with Trisha below) who knocked England out of the World Cup, footballer Diego Maradona. You can have a picture of him in La Boca, one of the most vibrant and colourful districts of the city and home to the nation’s most popular team Boca Juniors (Maradona and Carlos Tevez are ex-players). It will cost you 20 pesas (about £3) for the privilege but has to be done.
The real Maradona is a national hero in a land where football is a religion — one of their greatest loves along with tango and beef. The old port area of La Boca is where Italian immigrants once worked in the shipyards and the inhabited rundown wood and corrugated tin houses are a testament to the poverty that still exists – something Pop Francis has highlighted while a Cardinal there.
The brightly painted houses and shops in pedestrianised alleys are a backdrop for local artists and cafes where you can eat cheaply while watching tango. Impromptu performances in squares around the city are astonishingly good but try to see a national champion at a dinner show in the chic Faena boutique hotel in the antique district of Puerto Madero.
As Pope Francis said “you had to look to the end of the earth” for a new Pope, Buenos Aires – a sprawling city with three million people – is a 13-hour flight from the UK. Its tree-lined avenues are wide and there are huge parks everywhere with dog walkers strolling along holding the leads of up to a dozen pooches and fitness trainers putting ladies who lunch through their paces.
Argentinian women like to look good and Buenos Aires has become a world capital for boob jobs and bum lifts. In the huge neighbourhood of Palermo, there’s also five blocks of psychoanalysts, locally known as Palermo Freud because of all the “crazy people in the streets”. Even if you don’t need to go into therapy, do go to Palermo for a spot of retail therapy. Another shopping hotspot is Florida. Boutiques and numerous markets sell leather goods galore, but that’s no surprise if you consider the Argentinians kill 13 million cattle a year.
If you like beef, you will be in food heaven. Steaks served in restaurants such as La Cabrera in Palermo would feed five Maradona lookalikes. Locals can eat meat morning, noon and night and a good steak is half the price of one in Britain. Undoubtedly, you just have to wash down any meal with Argentinian wine. Signature red is Malbec and white, Torrontes.
Recoleta, an upmarket district with an abundance of French-style buildings, is where you can see the final resting place of first lady “Evita”, Eva Peron, who was worshipped by the poor. Ironically, her understated tomb is in a cemetery for the rich. Families of the dead who need money often sell plots for thousands. One close to Peron’s is on the market and an interested American was keen to turn it into a money-making Starbucks because of the number of tourists who file past!
Also visit the presidential palace Casa Rosada, the “Pink House” (above ), where Peron rallied the people from the balcony. Impressive museums, monuments, art galleries and sculptures — a favourite is the 66ft high steel and aluminium flower that opens in the morning and closes at sunset — are littered throughout the city.
For a change of pace, drive a couple of hours to a traditional estancia, a horse ranch. La Bamba De Areco, eight miles from San Antonio, is a blissful place to relax for a day or longer as the accommodation is gorgeous. Also visit San Antonio, a quaint town with white and coral buildings, a 1730 church and the best chocolate shop ever, La Olla de Cobre Chocolateria.
GETTING THERE: British Airways offer four nights B&B at the four-star Reino Del Plata Hotel Boutique, Buenos Aires, with flights from Heathrowbetween April 1 and June 20, from £1,129 per person. Visit www.ba.com/buenosaires
