In 1580, Juan de Garay reestablished Pedro de Mendoza’s failed settlement on what is now the Plaza de Mayo, surrounded by most major national institutions. The barrio’s axis is Avenida de Mayo, linking the Casa Rosada presidential palace (1873–1898) with the Congreso Nacional (National Congress, 1906); the broad perpendicular Avenida 9 de Julio splits Monserrat in half.

Buenos Aires’s most deluxe museum, the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires is a striking steel-and-glass structure dedicated to Latin American art rather than the Eurocentric contents of many—if not most—Argentine collections. Designed by Córdoba architects Gastón Atelman, Martín Fourcade, and Alfredo Tapia, it devotes one entire floor to the private collection of Argentine businessman Eduardo F. Constantini, the motivating force behind the museum’s creation; the 2nd floor offers special exhibitions.

At her most combative, to the shock and disgust of neighbors, Eva Perón chose the affluent Botánico for the Hogar de Tránsito No. 2, a shelter for single mothers from the provinces. Even more galling, her Fundación de Ayuda Social María Eva Duarte de Perón took over an imposing three-story mansion to house the transients.

Since Evita’s 1952 death, middle-class apartment blocks have mostly replaced the elegant single-family houses and distinctive apartment buildings that then housed the porteño elite (many of them moved to northern suburbs).

Once on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the barrio of Caballito gets few tourists, but its largest open space, heavily used Parque Centenario, is a good area for visitors to see an unadorned but improving neighborhood that’s popular with urban homesteaders.

The park’s natural history museum, housing one of the country’s largest and best-maintained collections of its type, veers between the traditional stuff-in-glass-cases approach and more sophisticated exhibits that provide ecological, historical, and cultural context.

Dating from 1937, its quarters are only a third the size of the original grandiose project but include decorative details such as bas-relief spiderwebs around the main entrance, and sculpted owls flanking the upper windows.

On the Río Tigre’s right bank, along Avenida General Mitre, two classic rowing clubs are symbols of bygone elegance: dating from 1873, the Anglophile Buenos Aires Rowing Club (Mitre 226), and its 1910 Italian counterpart the Club Canottierri Italiani (Mitre 74). Both still function, but they’re not the exclusive institutions they once were.

Tigre itself may have been revitalized, but many rusting hulks still line the Paraná’s inner channels. Farther from Tigre, where colonial smugglers often hid from Spanish officials, summer houses stand on palafitos (pilings) to prevent—not always successfully—their being flooded.

Almost within swimming distance of Carmelo (Uruguay), the Precambrian bedrock island of Martín García boasts a fascinating history, lush woodlands, and an almost unmatchable tranquility as a retreat from the frenzy of the federal capital and even provincial suburbs.

Only 3.5 kilometers off the Uruguayan coast but 33.5 kilometers from Tigre, 168-hectare Martín García rises 27 meters above sea level. Its native vegetation is dense gallery forest; part of it is a zona intangible provincial forest reserve.

At the west end of downtown Mendoza, across Avenida Boulogne Sur Mer, famed French architect Carlos Thays designed this 420-hectare park on property donated by governor (later senator) Emilio Civit. Planted with pines and eucalyptus, its literal high point is the Cerro de la Gloria, topped by Uruguayan sculptor Juan Manuel Ferrari’s Monumento al Ejército Libertador, an equestrian tribute to San Martín’s army (interestingly, one of its mounted soldiers is Afro-Argentine).

Irrigated by the Atuel and Diamante Rivers, vineyards and orchards still survive within San Rafael’s city limits, heart of a prosperous wine-and-fruit-producing area southeast of the city of Mendoza. Recreationally, the city can be a base for rafting on the Atuel and Diamante as well as for other activities in the nearby Andean foothills.

Misleadingly named, Ushuaia’s maritime museum (Yaganes and Gobernador Paz, tel. 02901/43-7481, www.museomaritimo.com, US$12, US$8 for foreign students; Argentines and locals get a discount) most effectively tells the story of Ushuaia’s inauspicious origins as a penal settlement for both civilian and military prisoners.

Alarmed over the South American Missionary Society’s incursions among the Beagle Channel’s indigenous peoples, in 1884 Argentina reinforced its territorial claims by building a military prison on Isla de los Estados (Staten Island), across the Strait of Lemaire at the southeastern tip of the Isla Grande.