Dante Fanatics and Symbolism

The next day we retraced some of our steps from the previous day: first, we went back to Plaza de Mayo and checked out Catedral Metropolitana. The Catedral contains the tomb of liberator Jose de San Martin and is flanked by two living guards--we were surprised to see actual persons guarding a tomb in a church-it must be a worthy expense! We checked out Casa Rosada again, but determined that it was indeed true that tours of the building were not available. We walked by a random lunch place that had a few select items and random cowboy paraphernalia. We went in and Jon ordered a choripan (chorizo sandwich) and Ching Jen had beef milanese. The owner was very friendly and asked us how we enjoyed our food. After we said we liked it, he elaborated and said that his restaurant is popular with policemen, somehow implying that his food must not be bad if policemen like it.

After lunch we walked down Avenida de Mayo to Palacio Barolo, an office building dedicated to Dante. We had to wait for the tour of the building so we walked to the other end of Avenida de Mayo where the Plaza & Palacio del Congreso resides. The Palacio is inspired by the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C., and it really looks similar! All of a sudden, a sweeping rain storm came right over our head and we ran for cover. We waited for the downpour to pass before it was time to head back to the Palacio Barolo. The architects and owner of the building were major Dante fanatics and built the building with lots of Dante symbolism. The lobby represents Hell-with dragon and snake lamp fixtures and 9 domes to represent the 9 hells. On the floor, rosettes in gold represent fire. The owner intended for Dante's ashes to be placed in the center of the building, but complications with the Italian government prevented this to occur. There are 7 old style elevators with iron cages and manual sliding doors. On the 4th floor, we looked down into the lobby from a circular balcony. Here, floors 1-14 represent Purgatory and there are only rounded corners everywhere we looked. The circular balcony represents pi or 3.14. This is derived from the fact that there are 22 floors (representing the 22 verses in Divine Comedy) and when divided by the number of elevators in the building (7) you get 3.14! We went up to the 14th floor and walked up to Heaven. We were in a round tower with small balconies that provided us with a panoramic view of the city. We climbed a few flights up to the lighthouse. It's glass enclosed and has a rotating light (the lamp had a mirror in it that reflected things upside down--it was very LOST feeling). We learned that there is a corresponding building and lighthouse tower in Montevideo which we missed somehow. On certain evenings, the two towers communicate with each other. After the tour we found a spot to have some tea before walking to the Obelisco at the end of Avenida 9 de Julio. It looks much like the Washington Monument.

In the evening we found a restaurant had had a live music show. First for dinner, Ching Jen had an empanada and a traditional stew dish (cazuela) if corn and mashed pumpkin, while Jon had a different stew with beef, fresh tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes and eggs cracked directly into the stew to cook. The band that played consisted of 1 singer, 4 guitarists and 1 drummer. They were a folk song band, having learned the folk songs from a master, some songs taking as long as 2 years to learn. It was great to have some traditional foods along with traditional live music making it a good night of culture and food.

The next day we didn't really have an agenda so we decided to go to Recoleta Cemetery again where Jon took more photos of mausoleum doors and sketched. We then had a picnic near Avenida Santa Fe of bread, cheese, olive oil and pickled vegetables before doing some shopping on Ave. Santa Fe. For dinner we went back to San Telmo and had chicken and mashed potatoes and a Spanish omelet.