Having been to Buenos Aires a number of times before we only had a few things on our 'to do' list especially as we only had one full day in the Argentine capital city.

After our day trip to Colonia we had an evening walking around the Puerto Madero area of BA. This area has been transformed from old docks to a vibrant area comprising offices, apartments, bars and restaurants. It really has been done very well and is an area fit for any capital city to be proud of.

On the Thursday, our full day in the city, we definitley wanted to visit what is probably one of the greatest book shops in the world. For the rest of the day we were happy to just enjoy the atmosphere of Buenos Aires.

Before visiting the bookshop we also visited the Casa Rosada, from where Eva Peron (of Evita fame) made her famous speech to the people of Argentina. The building, sometimes called the Pink Palace, is the Argentine Presidential Palace. We also wandered some of the back streets of central BA, called in at The Obelisk (The Obelisk is Buenos Aires, afterall . . . ) as we made our way steadily towards the bookstore for mid afternoon.

The El Ateneo Grand Splendid lived up to expectations having previously been a theatre but now a massive bookshop - it seemed that more people may have been here to just see the building that buy books, but what a great job they have done. It is well worth a visit if you are in BA - you can have coffee and cake her too if you wish . . . or even a cocktail!

Buenos Aires is a great city to visit, we could easily have filled another day wandering around what is also regarded as 'the Paris of the south' but alas it was not to be on this this trip as we would be making our way back to the UK the following morning.

There was however one last meal to have before this trip ended and we again returned to the Puerto Madero area and ate at Las Cabanas Las Lilas. This was a high end resaurant set in one of the old dock buildings and even though the prices were much higher than anywhere else we had dined the cost was still reasonable compared to being at home. The steak was excellent, as was the wine and, of course, the company.

The three week trip drew to a close with us leaving Buenos Aires on the Friday morning, travelling back to Birmingham via Sao Paulo, Brazil and then overnight onto Paris before joining the final flight of the trip back to the UK on the Saturday morning. A combination of Aerolineas Argentinas, Air France and Flybe got us back home.

Our bags however did not quite make the journey with us all the way to Birmingham but at least they were delivered back to us at home on the Sunday afternoon - things could have been much worse.