Buenos Aires: Best of the Best Culture & Foodie Trip Guide

Buenos Aires is unlike anywhere I have ever been. Just about everything about this country has the potential to surprise you, from the food scene to the culture. A couple fun facts:

• Buenos Aires had two foundings: it was first founded by Pedro de Mendoza in 1536 and it was destroyed in 1541 by its own citizens. In 1580, Juan de Garay founded it for the second time (both times by the Spanish) in the 16th century. From the start it was a trading city: its residents are known as 'porteños', people of the port.

• Mate is a popular beverage in several South American countries and ubiquitous in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. It is made using leaves and twigs from the yerba mate plant, a holly-like shrub, which are steeped in hot water to make mate or cold water to make tereré.

• 62% of the population has Italian DNA and dialects vary across neighborhoods. Buenos Aires is often described as Latin America’s most European city. The population is made up largely of the descendants of immigrants from Spain and Italy who came to Argentina in the late 19th or early 20th century. Porteños, and Argentinians in general, tend to consider themselves European in character rather than Latin American. 

• Buenos Aires is home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America and third largest in all of the Americas.

• Buenos Aires is home to the largest Japanese garden outside of Japan.