[Tango-L] Belle Epoque apartments for temporary rental in Buenos Aires

[Tom Stermitz]

I have stayed at Laura's apartment at the corner of Ayacucho & Lavalle.

It is a clean, lovely (not quite elegant), medium-sized apartment in a  
historic building with an iron elevator. Buenos Aires has a lot of  
these pretty, ca 1900 Paris-style buildings

It is quite centrally located. Easy to walk downtown or to several  
milongas. Not easy to walk to Nino Bien, but you probably want to use  
a taxi to that neighborhood. Corrientes is one block over.

The street corner is full of traffic, but that description covers  
about 99% of centrally-located Buenos Aires corners. For quiet  
anywhere near the center of town, you need to choose an interior  
courtyard. Also, approximately 99% of central Buenos Aires streets  
have lots of shopping and restaurants on the main floor.

Welcome to city life.

It is certainly worthwhile getting personal recommendations about any  
place you intend to stay. Someone like Laura or a rental agency has  
enough of a track record that you aren't going to be screwed on refund  
of deposit. Some of these places insist on cash for all or partial  
rent and deposit. You may have more recourse if you can pay by credit  
card. As I recall, Laura had you pay to her US bank account (she is  
American).


Breaking into the milongas is a completely different issue.

The boleo-gancho-back-sacada sequences don't get you very far at most  
milongas.

Yeah, El Beso is a bit tough to break into, even if you dance  
reasonably well. That can be true at a number of other milongas,  
(unless you are young and blonde, but that's not telling you anything  
new).

Some of the afternoon milongas are fairly easier to break into,  
assuming you have fundamentally decent skills. Not to get into a  
polemic about it, but that means, close, tidy, musical social dancing  
"the way they do it in Buenos Aires". If you dance this way, it is  
still a surprise to a lot of Buenos Aires dancers. They still have  
this prejudice that foreigners have no clue about tango.... They  
probably have plenty of bad examples to generalize from.

To be even handed, I've noticed that a lot of social dancers in Buenos  
Aires have pretty bad technique (ow, my aching back). I would say that  
is an illustration of why women shouldn't try to learn "just dancing".


On Jan 23, 2008, at 11:25 AM, Janis Kenyon wrote:

> Jerry wrote:
> Does anybody know anything about these apartments?
> I've heard several unhappy stories that they are not
> what they seem. I'm curious because a tanguera friend
> ...
>
> I know the street corner of Ayacucho and Lavalle, but I have never  
> seen the
> apartments.  If you want to sleep after being out dancing until 3:00  
> in the
> morning, this isn't the location for you.  There are bus lines on both
> streets.  That means constant traffic and pollution.  If you have  
> heard this
> from those who have rented there, then believe it.
>
> The apartments are advertised as being in Barrio Norte.  They are  
> located in
> the El Once wholesale shopping district of the barrio Balvanera, one  
> block
> from Corrientes which is the main street to downtown.  The  
> apartments are
> two blocks to El Beso, but that is one of the most difficult  
> milongas to
> break into as a tourist.  They are close to La Nacional, but the  
> milonga is
> not worth attending.  Nino Bien is mainly tourists.