Palermo Free Walking Tour

Palermo is where Buenos Aires exhales. Meeting at Plaza Italia, beneath the statue of Garibaldi that marks the neighborhood's northern gate, this tour opens into the Bosques de Palermo — the city's largest green lung, its rose garden and lakes laid out by French landscape architects for a porteño elite eager to have a Bois de Boulogne of their own.

From the parks, the route dives into the barrio's twin personalities: Palermo Soho, where cobbled streets and low colonial houses now hold design boutiques and concept stores around Plaza Serrano, and Palermo Hollywood, named for the TV studios that moved in during the 1990s and never quite left. Your guide reads the murals that cover entire building facades, explains how a neighborhood of family houses became Argentina's capital of fashion and screens, and points out the cafés worth an idle afternoon.