La Cuna de la Bandera
The Seat of the Flag. Rosario is the city where the Argentine flag was born, and they have the monument to prove it. Biggest monument I've ever seen.
The first morning I awoke here was 9 de Julio - a date which, I'd surmised from the grandeur of Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires (16 lanes wide already), must be an important one. "I don't know, it's some kind of fucking holiday," Belen told me cheerfully (her English is still fantastic). Lonely Planet declared it was Independence Day. So off we trotted down to the flag monument. We looked at it for about two seconds then went shopping. That was enough culture for one day.
Rosario is laid out on a grid so it's much easier to navigate than Buenos Aires (oh yeah and it's maybe 1/13th the size of Buenos Aires, which also helps a little bit). As with any Argentine city all the major streets have familiar names - Cordoba, Corrientes, Mendoza, 9 de Julio, San Martin, Sarmiento, etc. It lacks the blazing lights and overflowing abundance of the big city, but has a far more Latin American feel to it. Buenos Aires does have its own personality, of course, but when you come down to it, all big cities are really very similar - BA, Toronto, New York. It's in the smaller cities that you really start to see the distinctions. Of course BA is really the only major city that I've spent longer than a weekend in at a time, so I could be completely off base with that.
The rosarinos remind me of some friends in The Tick. Rosario is locked in a bitter contest with Cordoba for the title of Argentina's second largest city (when Belen discovered that Lonely Planet has the audacity to call Rosario the third largest city, she wanted me to throw it away). The city also chafes against its neighbour Santa Fe, because Santa Fe was made the capital of the Santa Fe province, even though Rosario is much bigger and more important. Sounds familiar.
You don't feel like you're soiling your lungs every time you breathe in, but so far I still prefer Buenos Aires as a city. I would never dare to tell Belen such a thing, however. I'm afraid I'd be thrown out on the street!
The first morning I awoke here was 9 de Julio - a date which, I'd surmised from the grandeur of Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires (16 lanes wide already), must be an important one. "I don't know, it's some kind of fucking holiday," Belen told me cheerfully (her English is still fantastic). Lonely Planet declared it was Independence Day. So off we trotted down to the flag monument. We looked at it for about two seconds then went shopping. That was enough culture for one day.
Rosario is laid out on a grid so it's much easier to navigate than Buenos Aires (oh yeah and it's maybe 1/13th the size of Buenos Aires, which also helps a little bit). As with any Argentine city all the major streets have familiar names - Cordoba, Corrientes, Mendoza, 9 de Julio, San Martin, Sarmiento, etc. It lacks the blazing lights and overflowing abundance of the big city, but has a far more Latin American feel to it. Buenos Aires does have its own personality, of course, but when you come down to it, all big cities are really very similar - BA, Toronto, New York. It's in the smaller cities that you really start to see the distinctions. Of course BA is really the only major city that I've spent longer than a weekend in at a time, so I could be completely off base with that.
The rosarinos remind me of some friends in The Tick. Rosario is locked in a bitter contest with Cordoba for the title of Argentina's second largest city (when Belen discovered that Lonely Planet has the audacity to call Rosario the third largest city, she wanted me to throw it away). The city also chafes against its neighbour Santa Fe, because Santa Fe was made the capital of the Santa Fe province, even though Rosario is much bigger and more important. Sounds familiar.
You don't feel like you're soiling your lungs every time you breathe in, but so far I still prefer Buenos Aires as a city. I would never dare to tell Belen such a thing, however. I'm afraid I'd be thrown out on the street!
posted by SarahT at 5:03 pm
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