The university city of La Plata, founded in 1882 as capital of the province of Buenos Aires, is situated on the Rio de la Plata estuary just 50 km due east of the federal capital itself. The city was designed by Frenchman Pedro Benoit and many of the municipal buildings were winning designs from an international competition hence the architectural mish-mash.

The city boasts several plazas too and a slightly bizarre numbered street system. Plaza Moreno is the central plaza over which towers the neo-Gothic awe-inspiring Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepcion. Upon the city’s centenary a time capsule of documents and other objects were uncovered from the centre of the plaza and these are now on display at the Museo y Archivo Dardo Rocha, named after the city’s founder. A few blocks northeast is Plaza San Martin, the city’s cultural centre, also surrounded by some fine architectural gems, which include the Pasaje Dardo Rocha, La Plata’s first train station, now a cultural centre that also houses the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Latinoamericano.

The Paseo del Bosque is a beautiful park that is also home to the large, albeit slightly old-fashioned, Museo de Ciencias Naturales, an astronomical observatory, a zoo and an open-air theatre, the Teatro Martin Fierro. Some eight kilometres north of La Plata is the Republica de los Ninos, the legacy of Eva Duarte, a fairytale village built under Juan Peron’s government.