It hardly has a century long history; La Plata was founded as the capital of the Province of Buenos Aires on November the 19th of 1882 in a place where there was no previous urban centre, just an estancia, a small port - Ensenada -, and its service hamlet.

Its creation took place in an exceptional moment of economic prosperity in the Argentine nation. In 1881 Dardo Rocha, the founder, then Governor of Buenos Aires, entrusted the layout to the Department of Engineers, led by Pedro Benoit.

The original draft was a square, 5 kilometres long on each side, delimitated by wide park-drives. The interior, which has all ready been overflowed due to urban growth, is a sort of super block divided in 36 blocks surrounded by wooded avenues.

There are important diagonal avenues superposed to this grid, which converge on Plaza Moreno from the vertices.

The green areas are one of the most important qualities of La Plata: it has 23 plazas, all built on the crossings of the avenues, and of these with the diagonals. The geometrical grid is broken at a short distance from the City of Buenos Aires to include Paseo del Bosque, a park all ready existing in the estancia when the city was founded.

Due to these antecedents, La Plata is a great example of a city rightly planned; it is located at a short distance from the City of Buenos Aires, to which it is linked through the highway and the railway.

The main activity of the city is the administration of the services provided by the state government. Its renowned university attracts an important number of students from all over the country, while its splendid urban layout, its parks and museums, turn it into a city of great tourist and cultural attraction.

HOW TO GET THERE

By car
Along La Plata - Buenos Aires Highway, either through Centenario Road or General Belgrano Road, Federal Capital - La Plata: 55 kilometres approx.

By train
From Constitution Plaza, it sets off every 15 or 20 minutes (Mondays through Fridays), and every 30 minutes on Saturdays and Sundays.

La Plata Station, on 1st and 4th Avenues
Telephone: (0221) 423-2575
Costumer service in the capital
Telephone (011) 1959-0800

By bus

Bus Terminal of Retiro
Telephone: (011) 4310-0700

Bus Terminal of La Plata, 4th and 42nd Streets
Telephone: (0221) 421-0992/2182
Trip duration: 1 hour 10 minutes

PLACES OF INTEREST

Municipal Ecological Park
The Ecological Park opened its gates to the public on November the 15th of 1998, after an intense phase of transformation and recuperation of the estate and its installations. It was born from an initiative of the local municipality in 1992, which acquired the 200 hectares of the property in order to incorporate it to the natural and cultural patrimony of the city. It currently plays an important role on environmental education.

Pereyra Iraola Park

It has a recreational area suitable for an important number of visitors; it occupies 600 hectares around the main house of the Estancia Santa Rosa, former property of the Iraola family, which now operates as the park's administration offices. In order to tour the place you can rent horses and mountain bikes, and boats or kayaks at the lakes. The Chapel of Santa Elena, which is adjacent to the main building, can be visited as well. It is located at 25 kilometres from La Plata.

Paseo del Bosque
It is built over the base of the Pereyra Iraola Estancia, and it is the largest public green space in the City of La Plata. It houses buildings such as the Museum of Natural Sciences and the Astronomic Observatory.

Wild Animals' Breeding Station (ECAS)
Located in Villa Elisa, this station is in charge of preserving endangered species; it has a watching area that can be toured on a vehicle, a huge lagoon, a sector with caged animals and a picnic area. Animals can be appreciated roaming free in their natural habitats.

Republic of the Children
It is located on General Belgrano Road and 501st Street; it embraces a 52-hectare estate and has been design so that several geographic features and natural landscapes are reproduced at scale within it.

This place was thought for serving a double purpose: on the one hand, to provide creative recreation in a world of dreams and story tales linked to childhood, and on the other, to learn about and exercise the rights and duties that citizens have in every democratic country.

The ambiences of his monumental work, built at a child scale, have been inspired on Andersen's and the Grimm Brothers' tales, as well as on legend descriptions. When Walt Disney visited the place in the year 1953, he inspired on it for the construction of Disneyland, in California, seven years later.

A miniature train runs across the entire estate, and a steamboat, replica of those riding the Mississippi, allows going on tours through the lake. Architectonically speaking, the buildings represent replicas of the Palace of the Signoria, in Florence, and the Palace of the Dux in Venice; the Giralda Tower, in Seville, the Patio of the Lions of The Alhambra; and domes identical to that of the Taj Mahal, in India, amongst others. It is one of the most representative places in La Plata.

The Cathedral
With pink masonry and a height that makes it visible long before entering the city, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is the largest neo-gothic temple in South America. Its designer, Pedro Benoit, was inspired on the cathedrals of Cologne, in Germany, and Amiens, in France, and started the construction in the year 1885 on a surface of seven thousand square metres.

The beauty of its floor stands out in the interior, made of granite stone and polished like a mirror. It has 89 large windows, of which 37 have stained glass of French and German origins, which represent scenes from the Old and New Testaments.

Its church towers, rising at 112 metres, represent the highest point in the city.

It offers a tour to its crypt dyed in legends, a modern glass elevator that allows going to the tower's vantage point to have a bird view of the city's layout, and a subterranean museum with a cafeteria. The main entrance is on 14th Street, between 51st and 53rd Streets.

Plaza Moreno
The cornerstone of the city was laid in this plaza, located in the Altos de Tolosa, on November the 19th of 1882. It marks the geometrical centre of the City of La Plata, and both the Cathedral and the Municipal Palace can be appreciated from its central aisle.

Islas Malvinas Cultural Centre
It is a 1600-square metre compound that rises over the structure of the former Casino for the Officers from the 7th Infantry Regiment. It has a patio for shows in open air, exhibition rooms, a small movie theatre and an auditorium; it also has a theme bar that offers a variety of cultural services: cyber café, bookshop, music shop and cultural video club. It is located on 20th Street, corner with 50th Street.

Zoo Park
It is the largest public zoo in the country, and is in an outstanding position amongst those in Latin America. The park has an abundant flora that provides a natural setting to the fauna collection, consisting of 1200 specimens belonging to 280 autochthonous and exotic species. The current objective of the park is the reproduction of the animals to be reinserted in their natural habitat. It opens Tuesdays through Sundays from 9:00 to 18:00 hours.

Municipal Palace
This building of German renaissance style, which was built in the year 1886 over a 14400-square metre surface, including the gardens, stands out for its sober grandiosity. Cultural activities take place in its installations, located on 12th Street, between 51st and 53rd Streets.

House of Government
The official bureau of the Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires works in here, and the Ministry of Government and other not less important governmental dependencies work in this building as well, located on 6th Street, between 51st and 53rd Streets.

Astronomic Observatory
It is in Paseo del Bosque, nearby the city centre, and was born almost at the same time than the city. It was the first centre in Latin America dedicated to the study of this discipline. It has four observation domes and a basement housing a seismographer and modern clocks that have permitted transforming the Time Service of the Observatory.

Curutchet House
A pilgrimage centre for thousands of architecture students in the world, the Curutchet House is the only residence designed by Le Corbusier, top representative of modern architecture, built on the entire American Continent. Besides its singularity and beauty, the value of the Curutchet House resides in the fact that the master designer overturned on it each of the architectural principles which made him famous. Nowadays it is the seat of the School of Architects of the province and is open to the public.

New Argentine Theatre
It was rebuilt after a fire destroyed its main building in the year 1977, becoming one of the most imposing house theatres in South America. Its lyric hall of Italian style with three levels of boxes houses 2200 spectators, and it has a prose theatre, a small movie theatre, an exhibition room, a cafeteria and workshops suitable for scenery production, props and costumes too. Its range of importance is only comparable to that of the Colon Theatre in Buenos Aires, and important artists have paraded along its stage, such as Maria Barrientos, Tita Ruffo, Richard Strauss, Arthur Rubenstein, Ana Pavlova and Alexander Brailowsky.

Museum of Natural Sciences
It is one of the main spots of interest in La Plata, and considered the 5th in importance in the world due to the value of its collection of samples and its scientific activity. Close to 400000 visitors cross its doors attracted by the large mammal fossils unique in the world. Not less popular are the dinosaurs, very much attended by the children.

The arranged tour along the rooms of this building of neoclassical style allows following the evolution of the earth in a progressive manner, concluding with man and its different cultures. It keeps collections of palaeontology, archaeology, ethnography, entomology, mineralogy and botanic; it has a library and a specialised archive too.

Other Museums

Almafuerte Museum: personal belongings of author Pedro B. Palacios (Almafuerte) can be appreciated amongst its collections, which can be visited on 530, 66th Street.

Beato Angelico Art Museum: its nature is art and its collections include etchings, drawings, ceramics, sculptures, etc; it is located on 47th Street and 73rd Diagonal.

Museum of the Cathedral: it is of religious nature and situated in a subterranean vault, with a collection of imagery, and elements of ornamentation and others from the construction of the Cathedral of La Plata. It is located on 14th Street, between 51st and 53rd Streets.

Doctor Emilio Azzarini Museum: you can appreciate collections of wind, stringed and percussion instruments from all over the world, scores from diverse periods and personal documentation of Doctor Emilio Azzarini. It is located on 582, 45th Street.

ACTIVITIES

Sports

The Aero Club of La Plata (a private entity) is located on the road to Punta Lara, on 74th Diagonal, and it offers parachuting and hang-gliding. Parallel to all this you have The Lagoon, where you can practice aquatic skiing and windsurfing, having hence a good time in a different way.

In the same way this city was distinguished at the International Fair of Paris with the Prize to Modernity, in the late XIX century, it has now been included amongst the applicants' list to be regarded as Cultural Patrimony of Humanity by UNESCO. This distinction will allow it to get important investments and to become an international tourist reference that can be amply visited.