[ Mar.2018 ] I continue talking about our city tour in Buenos Aires in Argentina.
We moved from the Recoleta area to the centre of the city.
In the centre, you cannot avoid passing through or crossing the Av. 9 de Julio, which is said to be the widest road in 
the world. It has 18 lanes.
The two bus lanes were built about two years ago and before that there used to be a green belt with trees.
Our guide, Elisabet, told us that some Japanese people were involved with the work of moving these trees. The moved trees are still healthy and growing.
Although this road is very wide, the traffic was jammed.
Not only here, but generally in Buenos Aires, the traffic situation is not very good during the week.
From Palermo, where we stayed, to the centre, we estimated that it takes about one hour by car.
The obelisk in the middle of Av. 9 de Julio is the place where people get together, especially when their football team wins.
In the past, people came and climbed the obelisk, but because they painted too much graffiti, the authorities built a fence around it and now no one can get near to it.
Another noticeable monument on this road is the building with the face of Evita.
This was built during the time of the previous president, Cristina Kirchner.
The interesting thing is that, on the north side where more wealthy people live, Evita looks stern making a speech. However, on the south side where poorer people live, she is showing her big smile wearing a flower on her clothing.
We saw her on the south side for the first time.
We got out of the car and walked along Av. de Mayo, the oldest avenue in the city.
Our first destination was Cafe Tortoni in this street, where we had not been able to get in the last time we visited here 
because of the long queue.
This is the oldest cafe started by a French immigrant in 1858 and, even now, they run as a cafe with the quaint atmosphere of the 19th century.
The back of the restaurant is a kind of museum with old photographs and mannequins of the artists who used to be the regulars here.
According to Elisabet, those poor artists were not welcomed customers because they stayed on and on with just a cup of coffee. Now, thanks to those artists, this cafe is famous and surviving well.
Apparently, a cup of coffee here is a little more expensive than other places.
We just visited the place and did not eat or drink anything here.
I had a look at the website for this cafe and discovered that they have some events at the weekend, such as Tango shows.
The next place we went to was a building called Palacio Barolo on the same street.
This building was built with the theme of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
The ground floor is ‘hell’ with statues of dragons and some patterns on the floor that depicting fire.
We found that they are running a tour of this building and it looked interesting, so we bought the tickets for the next day.
