A Buenos Aires day from San Telmo to Palermo

The oldest café in Buenos Aires, open since 1858 — mirrored walls, marble tables, waiters in white jackets. Order a café con leche and three medialunas at the bar. Skip the tango show upstairs; the point is the room at breakfast, not the cabaret at night.

The main square and the pink presidential palace. Stand at the railing where Eva Perón addressed crowds from the balcony. The Madres de Plaza de Mayo still walk the circle on Thursdays at 15:30, in white headscarves, as they have since 1977.

Walk Defensa Street south from Plaza de Mayo, stopping into the tango bars and antique shops along the way. On Sundays the whole street becomes a market; any other day Plaza Dorrego has tables of silver, leather, and handmade mate gourds. Bargain is expected.

A classic parrilla two blocks from Plaza Dorrego. Paper tablecloths, sawdust floor, a grill visible through the open kitchen. Ojo de bife (ribeye) or bife de chorizo, provoleta to start, a bottle of Malbec from Mendoza. Cash is easier than card.

The most elaborate necropolis in South America. Marble mausoleums line stone avenues in a tight grid. Eva Perón's tomb is small and unmarked, but any guide or free map will point it out. Walk the labyrinth for an hour — the older section to the north is the better half.

A twenty-metre metal flower that opens with the morning sun and closes at dusk, set in Plaza de las Naciones Unidas. The plaza around it is where locals picnic on weekends; an ice-cream cart parks on the western edge most afternoons.

The asado that will ruin other steakhouses for you. Book weeks ahead online, or turn up at 20:30 and wait at the bar on the pavement — they'll hand you a glass of champagne and the wait is usually under an hour. Ojo de bife with chimichurri, a Mendoza Malbec.