A few blocks from the Casa Rosada, most visitors walk straight past the oldest quarter of Buenos Aires. Here stand the city's oldest church, the block where the Jesuits educated the men of the May Revolution, colonial tunnels whose purpose is still debated and the basilica that keeps the British flags of 1807. Twelve stops between the Cabildo, the church of San Ignacio, the school of presidents, the mission warehouse and its tunnels, the hall where the first Congress met, the street named for the Defence, the basilica of Santo Domingo, Belgrano's tomb, the buried stream beneath a mansion, the iron market of San Telmo, the park where the first founding is remembered and the country house turned into the museum of Argentine history. Approximate audio duration: 24 minutes.
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Montserrat: la manzana de los jesuitas, los túneles y el Buenos Aires que se pasa de largo
A pocas cuadras de la Casa Rosada, la mayoría de los visitantes pasa de largo por el barrio más antiguo de Buenos Aires. Ahí están la iglesia más vieja de la ciudad, la manzana donde los jesuitas educaron a los hombres de Mayo, túneles coloniales cuyo propósito todavía se discute y la basílica que guarda las banderas británicas de 1807. Doce paradas entre el Cabildo, la iglesia de San Ignacio, el colegio de los presidentes, la procuraduría de las misiones y sus túneles, la sala donde sesionó el primer Congreso, la calle que recuerda la Defensa, la basílica de Santo Domingo, la tumba de Belgrano, el zanjón escondido bajo una casona, el mercado de hierro de San Telmo, el parque donde se recuerda la primera fundación y la quinta convertida en museo de la historia argentina. Duración aproximada de audio: 24 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~24 min of audio · 3.33 km on foot (~50 min walking) · about 1 h 15 min in total
You are standing in front of the Cabildo, on the corner of Bolívar and Hipólito Yrigoyen. Look at the white arcade and the tower with its clock. Behind you is the Plaza de Mayo, and at the far end, the Casa Rosada.
Work on this building began in 1725. It housed the colonial town council, and it was also a jail. Here, on 22 May 1810, an open council debated whether the viceroy should remain in office.
Count the arches. Today there are five. Originally there were eleven, but the city kept slicing pieces off: first to open the Avenida de Mayo in the late nineteenth century, then for the Diagona…
2
San Ignacio, the City's Oldest Church
You are on the corner of Bolívar and Alsina, in front of the church of San Ignacio de Loyola. Look at the baroque facade, a faded yellow, with its two towers. It is the oldest church still standing in Buenos Aires.
The Jesuits arrived in the city in 1608. At first they settled on the main square. In 1661 they moved to this block, which from then on became the centre of their work in the River Plate.
The church you see was begun around 1686 and consecrated in 1722. Architects from the order itself worked on it, among them the Bohemian Juan Kraus and the Italian Andrés Blanqui, who also worked…
3
The School Where Argentina Went to Class
You are in front of the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, on Bolívar street. Look at the tall, solemn facade with its columns and great windows. It looks more like a palace than a secondary school.
The school's story begins long before the building. After the Jesuits were expelled, the Royal Studies opened here in 1772, followed in 1783 by the Royal College of San Carlos. It was the school of the Buenos Aires elite.
Manuel Belgrano and Mariano Moreno, two of the central figures of the May Revolution, studied in those classrooms. Put it this way: many of the ideas of 1810 were first argued ov…
4
The Mission Warehouse and the Tunnels
You are on the corner of Alsina and Perú. Look at the low building with thick walls and iron grilles. It is one of the few colonial civil buildings to survive in central Buenos Aires: the Procuraduría de las Misiones.
The Jesuits did not only run churches and schools. They administered the Guaraní missions, hundreds of kilometres to the north. Their dealings with the port were handled from here: goods such as yerba mate came in and merchandise was shipped out.
The building dates from the eighteenth century. Notice the scale: low ceilings, small windows, walls that look like a fortress. That …
5
The Block That Filled with Lights
You are in front of Perú 272, the main entrance to the Manzana de las Luces. Behind this facade are courtyards, galleries and a semicircular hall that was one of the cradles of Argentine parliamentary life.
After the Revolution, the Jesuit block became the intellectual centre of the new republic. In 1821 the University of Buenos Aires was founded here. That same year a local newspaper called it the Manzana de las Luces, the Block of Lights, after the lights of learning. The name stuck.
Close by, on the corner of Perú and Moreno, stood the Public Library that the First Junta created in 1810 a…
6
Defensa, the Neighbourhood's Oldest Street
You are on the corner of Defensa and Alsina. Look south down the street: narrow, straight, with low buildings and iron balconies. Defensa is one of the city's oldest axes. It linked the main square with the south and the Riachuelo.
Its name is no accident. It recalls the Defence of 1807, when the people of Buenos Aires drove back the second British invasion fighting street by street. Columns of British soldiers advanced along these pavements.
On this corner stands a nineteenth-century pharmacy, the Farmacia La Estrella. Look inside if it is open: the wooden cabinets, the jars and the painted…
7
Santo Domingo and the Tower of 1807
You are on the corner of Defensa and Belgrano, in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, which everyone calls Santo Domingo. It is the Dominicans' church, and their convent fills much of the block.
The present church was built in the second half of the eighteenth century. Look at the two towers. One of them is pocked with round marks. They are not ornaments.
Go back to July 1807. A British army of several thousand men entered Buenos Aires to take the city. One of its columns, under General Robert Craufurd, barricaded itself inside this convent and fired from the towers into the str…
8
The Tomb of the Flag's Creator
You are in the atrium of Santo Domingo, in front of the mausoleum of Manuel Belgrano. Look at the marble and bronze monument, with allegorical figures around it. Here lie the remains of the man who created the Argentine flag.
Belgrano was born in Buenos Aires in 1770, a few blocks from here. He studied at the College of San Carlos, the one you saw on Bolívar, and later in Spain. He was an economist, a journalist, a member of the First Junta and a general.
In 1812, on the banks of the Paraná river at Rosario, he raised a sky-blue and white flag for the first time. He went on to lead the Army …
9
The Stream Buried Beneath a Mansion
You are in front of Defensa 755, the house known as El Zanjón de Granados. From the pavement it looks like just another old house. The interesting part is underground, several metres beneath your feet.
Buenos Aires is not as flat as it seems. A zanjón, a ditch-like stream, once ran across this land down towards the river, turning into a torrent on rainy days. The first houses were built along its banks.
Over time the stream was channelled under brick vaults, and houses, courtyards and cisterns were built on top of it. In the nineteenth century a family residence stood here, which later, like…
10
The Iron Market on the Edge of the Quarter
You are at the entrance to the San Telmo Market, on Defensa. Step inside and look up. You will see an iron and glass structure covering the whole interior, sheltering fruit stalls, butchers, antique dealers and cafés.
You have now left Montserrat behind. San Telmo, the neighbouring quarter, begins around these blocks. In colonial times it was almost an extension of the same historic centre, home to sailors, craftsmen and port workers.
The market opened in 1897. It was designed by Juan Antonio Buschiazzo, an Italian-born architect who worked a great deal for the city. The idea was to supply a…
11
Where the First Buenos Aires Is Remembered
You are in Parque Lezama. Look at the slopes, the huge trees and, beyond them, the land falling away towards the Riachuelo. Before the shoreline was filled in, the water came much closer to this edge.
Tradition holds that somewhere around here Pedro de Mendoza founded the first Buenos Aires, in 1536. No remains have yet been found to prove it, and the exact site is still debated. But the city chose to remember it here.
Look for the monument to Pedro de Mendoza. It was unveiled in 1937, four hundred years after that founding. It remembers a man who arrived with a great expedition and left def…
12
The Mansion That Keeps the Nation's History
You are in front of the mansion of the National Historical Museum, on the edge of Parque Lezama along Defensa. Look at the Italianate building, painted in reddish tones, with its gallery and lookout tower.
It was the main house of the Lezama estate. Since 1897 the building has housed the National Historical Museum, created a few years earlier to bring together the objects of Argentine history.
Inside are portraits, uniforms, flags and personal belongings of the leaders of independence. The most famous piece is the curved sabre of José de San Martín, which went with him on the campaigns that …
How long does the "Montserrat: the Jesuit Block, the Tunnels and the Buenos Aires Everyone Walks Past" audio tour take?
It has about 24 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 3.33 km walking route (~50 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h 15 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Cabildo and the Gateway to the Oldest Quarter" (coordinates -34.60866, -58.37367). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Buenos Aires and pick "Montserrat: the Jesuit Block, the Tunnels and the Buenos Aires Everyone Walks Past". No account required to start.
