One of the most elegant and sought after neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires is the barrio of La Recoleta. When it was formed back in the first part of the XVIIth century, it was called Montes Grandes, (Big woodlands) and it was a hide out for brigands, which turned it into a place that normal people kept away from.

In the year 1716 a small Franciscan chapel and a rudimentary convent was installed in the area. Fourteen years later a definite convent was built and also the church Iglesia del Pilar, of vital importance for the later development of the area.

Recoleta means Place of retreat. The Franciscan and Dominican orders used to own, apart from a convent in the centre of the city, another one outside the city walls, for their practices of retreat and contemplation. This last one was called a "Recoleta", and its monks were known as "recoletos" or of retreat.

Around 1770 the layout of the rural properties north of the present Plaza San Martin was incorporated into the city plan. It used to be an area of small landholdings, connected by a winding road called Calle Larga (the Long Street. Today Avenida Quintana). The river then reached to the border of the actual old bank, and covered the area where today you can find the Museum of Fine Arts.

Legend has it that, behind the church of the Recoleta, towards Avenida Pueyrredón, one could find the stockyards, slaughterhouses and the wagon trail that went north.

This attracted a mixed group of people like river shore dwellers, farm labourers and troublemakers that lived in the grocery stores of the area. It is said that the tango was born in this atmosphere, amongst boarding houses and coffee shops. It was danced in the Armenonville de Libertador y Tagle in 1888, and later on, also in the Palais de Glace.

The urban renewal of the Recoleta is started in 1830, with the laying out of the Avenida Callao as an encircling road around the city centre. It came all the way to Quintana and, at first; it was called Calle de las Tunas.

The cholera and yellow fever epidemics, in 1871, had as a consequence that the richest families left the southern party of the city and moved into the northern part. They not only started to move there but also started to define the style of the barrio through the building of palaces and elegant country houses surrounded by huge and attractive colourful gardens.

The definite consolidation of the barrio was the work of the superintendent Torcuato de Alvear, who, in the year 1885, laid out the Avenida that bears his name, a main street that was soon filled up by sumptuous palaces.

With the excavation material from the Puerto Madero the lower part was used as a landfill, and plazas and parks were created that soon made the Recoleta into the most elegant neighbourhood or barrio of the city.
Because of this, there are those that are of the opinion that la Recoleta is a piece of Paris, uprooted and transferred here, since it is very French looking: big green areas, exclusive avenues, with first class bars and restaurants.

La Recoleta offers big spaces where great cultural activities take place. During the weekends, in the heart of the barrio at the corner of Junín Street and Avenida Quintana there is a huge artisans market. And every day of the week you can try a typical Argentinean mate or a delicious and refreshing cup of tea in the winter gardens of the LoiSuites Recoleta, at Vicente López Street 1955.

It is one of the major nightlife areas of Buenos Aires. The variety of restaurants, pubs and nightclubs are concentrated along the streets that surround the Cemetery i.e. Junín, Azcuénaga and Vicente López, a detail that lends the area another of its special characteristics.

Attractions in La Recoleta