Frommer's Review
This is the main attraction in La Boca, Buenos Aires's original Little Italy. A pedestrianized street a few blocks long with a colorful, kitschy collection of painted houses known as conventillos (flimsily built houses that immigrants lived in), it's lined with art displays explaining the history of the area. Untold numbers of tacky T-shirt and souvenir vendors and artists set up stalls here and cater strictly to tourists. To be honest, I find this area repulsive and insulting to visitors to Buenos Aires. The history of La Boca is very important to Buenos Aires and the development of the tango. However, what remains here today has little to do with any of that. Even the touristy name of the street "Caminito" has nothing to do with Buenos Aires at all. It's from a song about a flower-filled remote rural village, not an intensely urban neighborhood where Italian-immigrant gangsters, prostitutes, and sailors once roamed the streets committing crimes and other acts of mayhem. To top it all off, in the summertime, the stench from the polluted port can also simply be overwhelming.
I am not saying you shouldn't come to La Boca, because that would be a shame -- the neighborhood has real value, but the Caminito does not do it justice. More interesting are the areas a few blocks from here where artists have set up studios such as Museo Casa -- Taller de Celia Chevalier or a visit to the Boca Juniors Stadium and Museum , which give you an idea of the psyche of Argentina. It's best to talk to locals off the all-too-beaten tourist track, rather than those along the Caminito who attempt to harass you into buying overpriced items or give you flyers with directions to lousy Italian restaurants. Come to Caminito if you must, and if you're on a tour, you will anyway. However, if you are on a very short stay in Buenos Aires, skip La Boca. For true authenticity and a flavor of old Buenos Aires, choose to see San Telmo instead. In anticipation of Argentina's 2010 bicentennial, the city is planning to redevelop the southern portion of Buenos Aires, which is where La Boca is situated. According to the city government tourism office, the plan will redevelop this area and bring back more authenticity. Some of the drawings I have seen indicate the development of a tourist train originating in Puerto Madero, re-landscaping to make the area more physically attractive, as well as rerouting of traffic passing into the district. I am looking forward to seeing the results, likely to be completed by 2008 and 2009.
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