Tango was born in the late nineteenth century on the shores of the River Plate, among immigrants, creoles and Afro-Argentines, blending habanera, milonga and candombe. Respectable families saw it as brothel music, until Paris went mad for it. Twelve stops between the square where people dance on Sundays, a tenement courtyard, the corner of the three roots, the city's oldest café, the academy of Piazzolla's poet, the street that never sleeps, the corner of a tango called Sur, the young people's milonga, the market of the Abasto's dark-haired boy, the house Gardel bought for his mother, the ice palace where high society surrendered and the basement where people dance until dawn. Approximate audio duration: 25 minutes.
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El tango: el baile que Buenos Aires despreció hasta que París lo aplaudió
El tango nació a fines del siglo XIX en las orillas del Río de la Plata, entre inmigrantes, criollos y afroporteños, mezclando habanera, milonga y candombe. Las familias decentes lo consideraban cosa de prostíbulo, hasta que París se volvió loca por él. Doce paradas entre la plaza donde se baila los domingos, el patio de conventillo, la esquina de las tres raíces, el café más antiguo de la ciudad, la academia del poeta de Piazzolla, la calle que nunca duerme, la esquina de un tango llamado Sur, la milonga de los jóvenes, el mercado del Morocho del Abasto, la casa que Gardel le compró a su madre, el palacio de hielo donde la alta sociedad se rindió y el sótano donde se baila hasta el amanecer. Duración aproximada de audio: 25 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~25 min of audio · 19.06 km on foot (~4 h 45 min walking) · about 5 h 15 min in total
You are standing in Plaza Dorrego, at the heart of San Telmo. Look around: low houses with iron balconies, cobblestones, café tables under the trees. It is one of the oldest squares in Buenos Aires.
On Sundays the square fills with the antiques fair that began in 1970. And when the stalls are packed away and night falls, an open-air milonga often takes shape. Couples of strangers dancing tango on the cobbles.
To understand where this music came from, imagine a city that exploded. In the 1869 census Buenos Aires had about 187,000 inhabitants. By 1914 it had passed one and a half million. And …
2
The Tenement Courtyard
You are in front of the Solar de French, a passage off Calle Defensa with a long courtyard, balconies and small shops. Its name recalls Domingo French, one of the patriots of the May Revolution of 1810.
Notice the shape of the house: a narrow front and, behind it, an elongated courtyard with rooms along the sides. Many San Telmo houses looked like this in the nineteenth century. And that shape explains a good part of tango's story.
In 1871 a yellow fever epidemic killed more than thirteen thousand people in Buenos Aires. The wealthy families who lived in this district fled to the north of th…
3
The Corner of the Three Roots
You are on the corner of Balcarce and Avenida Independencia, in front of El Viejo Almacén. It is an old house with thick walls and barred windows. In 1969 the singer Edmundo Rivero turned it into a tango house, and ever since people have sung and danced here for an audience.
But the tango you would hear inside has three grandparents. The first is the habanera, a Cuban rhythm that arrived on the ships and was played in theatres and halls all around the River Plate.
The second is the milonga, a creole music sung by the payadores, the improvising folk singers, which in the suburbs also became a…
4
The Poets' Café
You are in front of the Café Tortoni, on Avenida de Mayo. Look at the façade, with its air of a Parisian boulevard. Step inside and you will find columns, mirrors, stained glass in the ceiling and jacketed waiters who seem to belong to another century.
The Tortoni was founded in 1858 and took its name from a famous café in Paris, on the Boulevard des Italiens. It is the oldest café still open in Buenos Aires. This façade dates from 1898, when Avenida de Mayo was opened and the café came to face the elegant new street.
The avenue was conceived as a European boulevard, with theatres, hotels an…
5
The Academy of Piazzolla's Poet
You are at the entrance of the Academia Nacional del Tango, in the same building as the Tortoni. Upstairs is also the World Tango Museum, with scores, photographs, records and bandoneons.
Notice the contrast. A hundred years earlier, tango was a music that could not be named in respectable homes. Here it has a national academy, just like language or history.
It was founded in 1990 by the poet Horacio Ferrer, born in Montevideo and a porteño by adoption. Ferrer was Astor Piazzolla's lyricist. Together they wrote Balada para un loco in 1969 and the little opera María de Buenos Aires.
Piazzoll…
6
The Street That Never Sleeps
You are on the corner of Corrientes and Esmeralda. Look west: one block away stands the Obelisk. All around are theatres, bookshops open late and pizzerias with counters.
This corner has its own tango. The poet Celedonio Flores wrote verses about it, and Francisco Pracánico set them to music. For decades it was the meeting point of Buenos Aires bohemia.
Corrientes was the street of tango in its golden age. There were cabarets, tearooms with orchestras, revue theatres and radio studios. A 1924 tango, A media luz, opens by giving an address on this street: Corrientes three four eight, second f…
7
San Juan and Boedo of Old
You are on the corner of Avenida San Juan and Boedo. On one of the cut corners stands the café Esquina Homero Manzi, its name in large letters. This is one of the most sung-about corners in Buenos Aires.
Homero Manzi was born in 1907 in Añatuya, in the province of Santiago del Estero, and came as a boy to the southern districts of the city. He grew up between Boedo and Pompeya, when there were still dirt roads, empty lots and the railway embankment.
In 1948 he wrote the tango Sur with Aníbal Troilo. It begins: San Juan y Boedo antiguo, y todo el cielo, San Juan and Boedo of old, and the whol…
8
The Codes of the Milonga
You are in Almagro, on Calle Sarmiento, in front of the entrance to La Catedral. From the pavement it looks like any old doorway. Upstairs is an old high-ceilinged warehouse, full of paintings, odd objects and low lights, where tango is danced almost every night.
Almagro is a middle-class district of low houses and 1950s apartment blocks. It has its own tango, Almagro, from 1930, and it was one of the areas where neighbourhood clubs packed their halls during the golden age.
After 1955 tango lost ground. Rock music arrived, then television, and years of political instability. Many young peopl…
9
The Dark-Haired Boy from the Abasto
You are in front of the old Mercado de Abasto, on Avenida Corrientes. Look at that huge concrete building with its vertical art deco arches. It opened in 1934 and for decades was the city's great wholesale fruit and vegetable market.
Before this building there was an earlier, more modest market on the same site. Around it grew a neighbourhood of porters, carters, stallholders and bars that never closed. And in that neighbourhood grew up a boy named Carlos Gardel.
According to his birth certificate, he was born in Toulouse, France, on 11 December 1890, as Charles Romuald Gardès. The son of an…
10
The House Gardel Bought for His Mother
You are in front of a casa chorizo, a long, narrow house on Calle Jean Jaurès, number 735. This is the Carlos Gardel House Museum. Notice the entrance hall, the courtyards in a row and the rooms opening onto them, just as at the Solar de French.
Gardel bought this house in 1927 to live in with his mother, Berthe. He was already famous. He lived here during the years of his triumph, between tours of Europe and seasons in Buenos Aires.
Everything had changed in 1917, when he recorded Mi noche triste, with words by Pascual Contursi set to a tango by Samuel Castriota. It was the story of a man a…
11
Paris Adopted It, Buenos Aires Accepted It
You are in front of the Palais de Glace, on Calle Posadas, in the heart of Recoleta. Look at that circular building with its dome. It opened in 1910 as an ice-skating rink for high society, and later became a ballroom. Today it is the National Palace of the Arts.
This is the district of the wealthy families who had fled the south after the yellow fever. For them tango was something for compadritos and brothels. Although their sons slipped off at night to dance it on the outskirts.
Some of those rich young men travelled to Paris. So did the musicians. In 1907 Ángel Villoldo, composer of El ch…
12
Dancing Until Dawn
You are in Palermo, on Calle Armenia, in front of the Armenian Centre. Its basement is home to La Viruta, one of the best-known milongas in the city. If you come at night, you will hear the music drifting up the stairs.
Look at who goes in. Porteños of all ages, but also Japanese, Germans, Koreans, Americans. Many have come to Buenos Aires just to dance. Some stay for months, taking classes and going to milongas every night.
The evening usually starts with beginners' classes. First you learn to walk, which in tango is the hardest thing of all. Then the milonga begins, and the floor fills wit…
How long does the "Tango: the Dance Buenos Aires Scorned Until Paris Applauded It" audio tour take?
It has about 25 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 19.06 km walking route (~4 h 45 min on foot). Plan roughly 5 h 15 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "An Old Square in a New City" (coordinates -34.62065, -58.37185). 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 "Tango: the Dance Buenos Aires Scorned Until Paris Applauded It". No account required to start.
