Palacio Barolo: Buenos Aires Travel Guide (4.6★)

Dante on Avenida de Mayo

The building is laid out as a poem. Italian architect Mario Palanti designed it for textile businessman Luis Barolo, and it opened in 1923. He mapped its floors onto the Divine Comedy:

• Ground floor and basement: Hell
• Floors 1–14: Purgatory
• Floors 15–22: Heaven, rising to a domed lighthouse

The tower reaches about 100 metres, one for each canto of the poem. When it was finished it was the tallest building in Buenos Aires. Palanti built a near-twin, Palacio Salvo, across the Río de la Plata in Montevideo.

Inside the tour

At street level you walk into a long arcade with vaulted ceilings, ornate lamps and inscriptions in Latin. Some of the upper floors are still ordinary offices, so you can’t wander up on your own. A guide takes the group up through the floors, points out the numerology hidden in the plan, then leads you up a narrow spiral stair into the lighthouse cupola.

From the top you look straight down Avenida de Mayo to the Casa Rosada in one direction. In the other you see the green dome of the Congreso Nacional. Allow about an hour for a standard tour. Night tours light up the beacon and show the avenue lit up below.

Booking a slot that isn’t full

The building is one of the city’s most-reviewed landmarks, and tours sell out. Book on the official Palacio Barolo website, which lists the current tour times, languages and prices. Turn up at the arcade a few minutes early, because groups leave on time.

• Quietest weekdays: 9am–10am, Tuesday to Friday. On Mondays the doors open at 10am, so that hour doesn’t exist.
• Quietest weekends: 10am–5pm and 8pm–10pm on Saturday. Sunday closes at 9pm, so the evening window ends then.
• Current hours: Tuesday–Friday 9am–10pm, Monday 10am–10pm, Saturday 10am–11pm, Sunday 10am–9pm. These can change, so check the site before you go.

Tours run in Spanish and English, so ask for the language you want when you book. The spiral stair to the cupola is steep and tight. If you’re nervous of heights, tell the guide at the start. Locals call the arcade “Pasaje Barolo”, and that’s the name to give a taxi driver.

Getting there and the blocks around it

Take Subte Line A to Sáenz Peña station, which is right on Avenida de Mayo a few steps from the door. Congreso station, also on Line A, is about two blocks west and leaves you at Plaza del Congreso.

Afterwards you can walk east along Avenida de Mayo, Buenos Aires’s most Parisian boulevard, lined with Belle Époque facades. Café Tortoni, the city’s oldest café, is at number 825. Keep going and you reach Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada. Walking west instead brings you to the Congreso building. Doing both gives you a half-day loop on foot.