City of Cafes

Las Violetes

What a lovely monicker - to be a city of cafes.  Cafe society is alive and well in B.A.   There are literally hundreds of wonderful cafes.  Some street corners in the downtown core have one on each corner.   Yesterday we decided to visit some of the more famous ones.  The first was Cafe Tortoni - which opened in 1858 and is a fabulous old place with warm wood bars, chandeliers, tiled floors and pictures of the past.  They hold tangos shows nightly - we off to one tonight.  We started our morning with cafe con leche and double expressos and churros for me and palmetiers for Ken.  Lovely.

We then took the subway out to Almegro, some 15 minutes out of the centre. The subway station is beautiful in its own right.   It opened in 1913 and was the first subway in all of South America.  The old wood carriages are still in use and the windows, with leather straps are open as we blast through the underground.  Even the station itself Peru, has retained the old tiles walls.

Los Violetas was our next stop for lunch.  Another elegant cafe with very nigh ceilings stained glass windows, a wooden bar with stained glass and stone carvings and fine woodwork. 

A sense of grace pervades the city, with much beauty everywhere, at every turn, It feeds my soul to be surrounded by lovely lines, graceful arches, views of beauty.  Perhaps because I grew up in Vancouver, full of natural beauty but few buildings of great stature, that I find it wonderful to be here.