The Palermo Parks

The Parque Tres de Febrero, known to everyone as the Bosques de Palermo, the Palermo Woods, is where Buenos Aires goes to breathe. Laid out in the 1870s under President Sarmiento on land that had belonged to the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, and named for the date of the battle that brought Rosas down, it was designed as a grand public park in the manner of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, and it remains the largest and most popular green space in the city. Its centre is a chain of lakes ringed with eucalyptus, palms and jacarandas, where you can rent pedal boats, and its paths fill with runners, cyclists, rollerbladers, picnickers and families on weekends, when some of the park roads close to traffic. The jewel of the park is the Rosedal, the rose garden, opened in 1914, with more than eight thousand rose bushes of nearly a hundred species arranged in formal beds around a lake crossed by a white Greek-style bridge. Its corners hold the Patio Andaluz, a tiled Andalusian courtyard donated by the city of Seville in 1929, and the Jardín de los Poetas, the Poets' Garden, with busts of writers from Shakespeare to Borges. The roses are at their best in spring, from October into November, and again in autumn. Nearby, the Planetario Galileo Galilei, a 1960s flying saucer of a building, is a much-loved landmark with shows under its dome. Across Avenida Figueroa Alcorta, the Jardín Japonés, opened in 1967, is one of the largest Japanese gardens outside Japan: a lake full of enormous koi, red arched bridges, a teahouse and a cultural centre, all deeply calm. To the south, in Palermo proper, the Jardín Botánico Carlos Thays is a free botanical garden with greenhouses and resident cats, and the old zoo has been turned into an Ecoparque focused on conservation.

Visiting well: the park itself and the Rosedal are free, and the Rosedal keeps daytime hours, closing at night and for maintenance on some days. The Japanese Garden is open daily from ten in the morning to six in the evening, rain or shine, and charges a ticket that is roughly three times higher for non-residents than for Argentine residents; it is still modest, in the region of fifteen to twenty dollars, and children under twelve enter free. Pedal boats are rented by the half-hour on the lakes. On weekends, the park roads around the lakes are partly closed to cars and filled with cyclists and skaters; the city bike-share system has stations nearby. Bring water and sun protection in summer, as some areas have little shade.

How to combine it: the parks sit between MALBA and the Palermo neighbourhoods, so a perfect day might start with MALBA in the late morning, continue with lunch at the museum or in Palermo Chico, then the Japanese Garden, a walk around the lakes to the Rosedal and the planetarium, and finish with a sunset drink. From the park it is a fifteen-minute walk or a short taxi ride into Palermo Soho and Palermo Hollywood, the city's most fashionable districts for shopping, cafés, cocktail bars and restaurants, so the afternoon flows naturally into the evening.

For families, the parks are the best antidote to museum fatigue: boats, playgrounds, bikes and open lawns, with the planetarium and the Ecoparque nearby. For couples, the Rosedal in spring and the Japanese Garden in the late afternoon are among the most romantic corners of the city. Locals use the woods for running at all hours, but like any big city park they are best enjoyed by day, so plan to leave by dusk.