Buenos Aires South Of Plaza De Mayo

Head just south of Buenos Aires’ main square and you’ll encounter some of the most beautiful sections of the city, complete with culturally and historically significant churches and other stone buildings. There’s not much to see at Casa Rivadavia today (it’s a parking garage), but it’s where Argentina’s first president, Bernardino Rivadavia, lived in the early 19th century. Sure, it’s an unglamorous finish for a building of such historical significance, but extra parking is always welcome in the city center. (Defensa 360.) Nearby, Casa Liniers is simply a white, colonial-looking building where Santiago Liniers lived. He was one of the last viceroys before Argentine independence and leader of the invasion force that recaptured the city from the British in the early 19th century. (Venezuela 469.) Behind its imposing Neoclassical front, Centro Nacional de la Música holds concerts and practice rooms, but, as the facade says, it was originally the Biblioteca Nacional before it moved to the concrete mushroom cloud in Recoleta . Borges was the director here for some time. (México 564.)

Complejo Franciscano. The site of a church since 1582, this large, ornate, stone complex has long been one of BA’s most important cultural and religious centers. As you walk up the stone steps and through the gate, one of the city’s least visited churches, the Basílica de San Francisco, is immediately in front of you. Built in 1726, the single long nave is lovely, if eerily quiet, with beautiful tiled floors, wooden side chapels, magnificent tapestries, and a lack of visitors; the crypt, which contains obscure Argentine patricians and politicians, can only be visited on a guided tour. Across the patio, the Capilla de San Roque, also built in 1726, is a smaller, if similarly Neo-Baroque, version of the basílica. Next door, the small Museo Monseñor Fray José María Bottaro explores the relationship between the Franciscan order and national culture, and includes a collection of religious paintings, icons, and liturgical garments in three lovely galleries.

For those who plan well in advance, one Saturday each month, the monks open up the doors of the Convento Santa Úrsula for a guided tour of its stone cloisters, cells, and refectory. This tour is also the only way to see the city’s oldest library, which includes a 16th-century Bible. (Adolfo Alsina 380. S Plaza de Mayo. ☎4331 0625; www.complejofranciscano.com.ar. Basílica and capilla open M-Sa 10am-6pm. Free. Museum open M-Sa 10am-5pm. AR$7, students AR$3.50. Guided tours of the basílica and crypt every hour W-Su 11am-5pm. AR$5. Guided tours of the capilla every hour W-Su noon-3pm. AR$5. Guided tours of the museum every hour W-Su 10am-4pm. Free with admission. Guided tours of the monastery and library 1st Sa of every month 5pm. AR$10.)

Manzana De Las Luces (Block Of Enlightenment). They certainly set high expectations with a name like the “Block of Enlightenment.” Since this small slice of the city is the historical center of culture and learning in Buenos Aires, consider the expectations met. The Block of Enlightenment was originally the domain of the Jesuits, who founded the city’s oldest church, Iglesia San Ignacio, here in the mid-17th century. Since then, the block has hosted a variety of educational and political institutions, most recently part of the Universidad de Buenos Aires. On account of numerous reconstructions and remodelings, however, only pieces of many of the original buildings remain, including just one of San Ignacio’s cloisters. If you want to get inside the block’s massive walls, you’ll have to take one of the guided tours, which visit a few original halls, a reconstruction of Buenos Aires’ first legislature, and a small section of a tunnel system that once connected the churches. You won’t get to see a whole lot, but the Spanish-language tours are still packed with information. (Perú 272. S Perú or Bolívar. ☎4342 3964. Guided 1hr. tours M-F 3pm, Sa-Su 3, 4:30, and 6pm. AR$5.)

Basílica De Santo Domingo. At the corner of Belgrano and Venezuela is the striking 18th-century Basílica de Santo Domingo, also called the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Rosario. The facade boasts little decoration, though replicated shrapnel on the eastern tower serves as a reminder of attacks on the British, who took the cathedral in 1806. For more on what they were doing there, A small accompanying museum, the Museo de la Basílica del Rosario, displays some relics of the conflict, including captured British flags. The building was put under siege again in 1955 and was partially gutted by fire during the military uprising that deposed Juan Perón, the Revolución Libertadora. Conflict aside, the basílica also served as a secularized natural history museum and astronomy observatory during the early 19th century, only to be returned to the Dominican order a few decades later. Step outside into the courtyard and it will be difficult to miss the massive tomb of General Manuel Belgrano, creator of the Argentine flag and an important commander during the independence struggle. At the time of publication, the basílica’s ornate interior was closed to the public for renovation. (Belgrano and Defensa. S Plaza de Mayo. ☎4331 1668.)