After my initial visit to Buenos Aires at the beginning of this trip, I returned 3 more times in transit between other locations in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Most of these trips were just one night stop overs but I still got a chance to get out and see a bit more of the city. This is a compilation of the best bits from those stop overs.

A good friend of mine put me onto the Atlas Obscura website (www.atlasobscura.com). It provides an alternative guide to popular locations. In Buenos Aires it recommended the Palacio Barolo (www.palaciobarolo.com.ar).

Luis Barolo, an Italian immigrant who had made a fortune in knitwear, commissioned the architect Mario Palanti to design the building. Palanti chose to design it accordance with the cosmology of Dante’s Devine Comedy. As both men were Masons, there are also Masonic references as well. When it opened in 1923, it was the tallest building in South America. The building offers regular guided tours and sells tickets from one of the original concession booths in the lobby.

It still uses the original elevators.

The basement and the ground floor lobby represent Hell, as depicted by this monster.

Floors 1 to 14 represent Purgatory and provide an opportunity to look down into Hell.

Floors 15 to 22 represent heaven. There is a terrace part way up the building which provides a better view of the mansard roof.

From level 22 you can look out over the city.

The dome at the very top still has the working light that was designed to welcome visitors arriving from the Atlantic Ocean. When we visited it had a pink gel added for breast cancer awareness week,

A long way down to the street below.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to see the light working – it is turned on at 8pm every night for a couple of hours.

Buenos Aires is a great city to walk around at night. This is the National Congress Building.

Another great thing about Buenos Aires is that they still have lots of book shops – Amazon does not operate in Argentina (yet).

I also got a couple of chances to meet up with Pablo Menafra, a work colleague who I have known since 1998.

I finally left Buenos Aires on 10th Nov and headed to Santiago.