Evita Tour By Buenos Aires Experience

Apr
02
2010

by Andrew

Historical Evita & City Tour

I recently went on the best Evita and City tour I have experienced whilst in Argentina. I kid myself that I know about Eva Peron and that I knew the history and the ‘Peron places’ in Buenos Aires. That was until I spent a morning and a very long lunch with our Experience Director, Sebastian Airaldi and couple of longer-term tenants we took for a free Evita tour to test the 2010 updated tour program.

THE EVITA TOUR

I must add – Merissa and Sara – I thank you for kindly providing lunch, I am not so sure about my hangover the next day. I forgot just how quickly English girls sink their wine! I hope you enjoyed my favourite watering hole in Recoleta – Puerto Zuelo.

When we met Sebastian Airaldi who informally ran his business with a group of Argentine guides who were specialists and properly licensed under local Buenos Aires regulations, we knew instantly that we had found a perfectionist and a clever one! Buenos Aires Experience is fast becoming one of the leading tours companies in Buenos Aires.

I would guarantee that you will not find a better Buenos Aires private guided tour, I am so convinced I have asked Sebastian to post to his website a money back guarantee for Buenos Aires Stay’s clients..

The Evita Tour

Evita’s life touches all the favorite Buenos Aires barrios. We start our Evita Experience in SanTelmo at the CGT (General Workers Union), the traditional source of ‘Peronist power’ (eve today) where she Eva Duarte Peron is still revered and remembered with a portrait mural on the facade the Building as well as a constant flame to celebrate her life.

Next door is the Engineering University .This monumental structure used to house The Eva Peron Foundation, established by Evita herself in order to help the poor and her further her own political ambitions.

From San Telmo we wander to the Plaza de Mayo, site of the Casa Rosada (Pink House) and its balconies witness to Evita`s important speeches and Peronist rallies. Later, this seat of government suffered bombing by the military when during the Revolution Libertadora of 1955 that ended Peron’s first terms as president. You can still see the bullets hole on the Ministry of Economy and a plaque that reads – “The scars on this marble were the harvest of confrontation and intolerance .Their imprint on our memory will help the nation achieve a future greatness.”

Then is on to the national congress building where Evita witnessed the swearing of Peron`s second term after joining him in an open car traveling to the Pink House, the whole time supported by a harness and covered in a mink coat to hide her frame ravaged by cancer and a body so weak and unable to support her weight.

Evita sadly passed away just a few days later at the peak of her popularity at the young age of 33. Congress is also where she lay in state for days on end while her faithful stood in line to get one last glimpse of their heroin.

From Congreso we travel on to Recoleta to see her monument and to visit the Duarte mausoleum where she finally lays interred at the Recoleta Cemetery.

Around her, lay many of her foes, sworn enemies of the Perons and supporters of the status quo. We mean of course the landowning aristocracy and industrialist who still fear their legacy. Nearby, on Posadas street is the apartment where Eva Duarte Peron once lived.

We finish our journey in the Evita Museum that displays videos, photos, clippings and even a newspaper with her fingerprints. Among the many prize memorabilia are her wardrobe, shoes, handbags, hats, old wallets and even her perfumes.

We can take a coffee and a snack at the museum café on the patio and our Evita ‘specialist’ will answer your questions and help you piece together the impact this iconic lady had and still has on Argentine social and political history.