Plaza de Mayo: Buenos Aires’s historic center is ground zero for Argentine public life.

Café Tortoni: For nearly a century and a half, the Avenida de Mayo’s traditional gathering place has been an island of stability in an ocean of political, social, and economic upheaval.

Galerías Pacífico: Even non-shoppers will appreciate the vision with which 1990s developers adapted this historic Microcentro building to contemporary commerce, while preserving its stunning murals.

Teatro Colón: Renovated for the bicentennial, the continent’s most important performing arts venue retains its style and dignity.

Plaza Dorrego: Antiques vendors and spirited performers clog San Telmo’s principal plaza and surrounding streets every Sunday.

Cementerio de la Recoleta: For both the living and the dead, the barrio of Recoleta is the capital’s prestige address.

MALBA: For decades, even during dictatorships, Argentina has had a thriving modern art scene, but Palermo’s striking Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires has given it a new focal point.

Museo Eva Perón: Promoted by Evita’s partisans, Argentina’s first museum dedicated to a woman is as notable for what it omits as for what it includes.

Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales: In the untouristed barrio of Caballito, this improving museum sheds light on Argentina’s dinosaur discoveries of recent decades.

Isla Martín García: Just off the Uruguayan coast, its bedrock rising out of the River Plate’s muddy waters, the historic island of Martín García has been a colonial fortress and even a political prison, but today it’s an absorbing getaway from the Buenos Aires bustle. It is reached from the suburb of Tigre, only 45 minutes by train from the capital.