The Palacio was commissioned by its namesake, Luis Barolo, an Italian immigrant who had made his fortune in fabrics. The building was built by architect Mario Palanti and was imagined alongside the Palacio Salvo in Montevideo, Uruguay (that also has a lighthouse on top, however, although intended to be able to signal one another, the curvature of the Earth was not taken into consideration and thus the lights are actually unable to be seen by one another).
Yes, we're going all the way up to the top there!
Built between 1919 and 1923, the building, which houses mostly offices, is full of references to the epic poem. The different sections represent Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, it's height in metres equals the number of songs (100) and it has 22 floors, the same as the number of stanzas in each canto.
Guided tours are offered on Mondays and Thursdays, and so on Thursday we join in with the 4:00 p.m. session offered in both Spanish and English. We take up the challenge of trying to follow along in Spanish and then use the English portion to check how we did. English spoken with a thick Spanish accent, however, is also difficult to decipher, so sometimes we have no idea what is being said — in Spanish or English!
We persevere....
The main lobby is considered part of Hell, complete with "fire" on the marble floors and menacing dragons that keep watch from above.
The view down to Hell from Purgatory gives a sense of the building and it's cylindrical design.
Accessing Heaven means an elevator ride followed by six flights of very narrow stairs leading to the tower room at the top. There are some great views from Heaven, should you wonder what it's like up there.
Just above Heaven are more (even NARROWER!) stairs that leads to the lighthouse light.
Afterwards, it's back to San Telmo to the Bar Dorrego on Defensa street. We are turned off by the inflated-for-the-tourists prices though and head instead to the more reasonably priced Bar El Federal where we try the other favourite Argentinian drink — Fernet and Coke. Fernet is an aromatic herbal bitter, usually served as a digestive. Mix it with Coke (a very tall pour of Coke that is) and a few peanuts it's not too bad at all for a pre-dinner cocktail. Tastes to us like a minty coke float!
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