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Published: January 21st 2015
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We decided to take a day trip to La Plata. We researched how to get there. You can take the train but everyone agrees DO NOT TAKE THE TRAIN. It looks like something out of a documentary of scary trains. It also goes through the poorest areas surrounding BA. So the train is out. You could rent a car but it would be the most expensive way to get there. You could take a tour but we are not tour people and prefer to travel independently. So that leaves the bus, there is the city bus and a private company bus. Mark wanted comfortable seats and thought the private bus might not stop as often as the city bus. So we go to the Retiro bus station. We read you should take a taxi because it is dangerous to walk to so we took a taxi because we did not know where the entrance to the bus station was and we did not want to walk around the Retiro area. The Retiro train station is where I had my watch stolen on our second day in BA. We get to the bus station and realize we could have taken the metro
and walked past the train station right to the bus station so no taxi is needed. Sure you need to make sure people do not get close enough to rob you but that is just the way it is. I doubt the inside of the bus station is any safer than the outside. We read that you go inside and find a company that lists La Plata as a destination. Well there must be 200 companies and only one that goes to La Plata. So just go to booth 5 for a ticket to La Plata. We of course started at 200 and looked at almost all of them before getting to 5. The good new is the ticket was only 25 pesos for three of us to travel on the bus for one hour. That is less than $1.00 US dollars per person. They gave us a bus station number and waved to the area in the back of the bus staion where many buses were picking up passengers. We went there and could not find our statiion number, we asked and were directed to another area but again not our station number. We exited the bus station and
in front of the train station we found our bus station. The bus comes every 10 min so we did not have to wait long. The bus came and it was comfortable like a plane seat with light and fan above the seat. We napped and woke up in La Plata. We were told that you should take a taxi out of the bus station becaause it is not safe so we got a taxi and asked to be taken to Basilica Nuestra Senora de Lujan. A beaurtiful neo-Gothic cathedral with 350 feet high twin spires. The taxi driver took us about 10 blocks past the cathedral and then back again to pad the bill. O well it is almost expeced here. We love checking out churches and this one is well worth the visit. There is no charge unless you want to visit the museum under the church. We skipped the museum because the discriptions are in Spanish only. We did make the mistake of eating at the cafe in the cathedral and it was not good. After lunch we walked thru Plaza Mariano Moreno directly across from the cathedral and onto Palacio de la Legislaura. There was a
small art gallery located inside and there was no fee to visit it. The building was interesting but none of the bathrooms in the bulding had toilet paper. When you leave BA bring tissue. We then walked on to the Museo de La Plata . The Museo is a ntural hisory museum. The museum was very cheap, less than five US dollars.and has theEntomology Gallery, filled with beetles and butterflies . They have a zoology gallery with a gigantic jawbones of the blue whale and all sort of stuffed animal. The Paleontology Gallery is alos large with dinos from 71 million years ago. They have a Egypt Room, Northwest Argentinian Archaeology, Latin American Archeology, and large sectiion on the Earth. So the museo is well worth the visit. From here we walked backed to the bus station. A little unsure about walking in the bad neighborhood but it was day light and we had no troule. A bus came within 10 minutes and back to BA we went. Our first experience on a bus out of town was a learning experience. When traveling in smaller towns it should be easier becauss there will not be 200 bus lines to choose
from.
Bye for now
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Stanley Skiba
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Fantastic Architecture
Love the pictures that you are taking. Love your commentary as it seems like there is a new adventure every day. The buildings are awesome considering how old they are and how well built they were.