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Buenos Aires is a city with a real buzz and an exuberant Bacchanalian atmosphere. People party till dawn, sleep till noon, and hold festivals to celebrate anything from wine to the tango. A vibrant mix of bohemian charm, faded gentility and edgy 21st-century style, it is a city with a split personality: half European, half Latin Amercan. Its cobbled streets, historic architecture, brightly painted houses and atmospheric cafés vie with the modern sculptures, high-rise buildings and busy highways of a cosmopolitan capital city.

The different sides to the city's character are on show in its various 'barrios', or neighbourhoods. Decide where you want to be based before you book your hotel: our recommendations are dotted throughout the city. Choose between picturesque downtown Retiro, with its galleries and antique shops; the brand-new waterfront neighbourhood of Puerto Madero; up-and-coming Palermo Viejo, a magnet for street culture; bohemian Palermo Hollywood; or San Telmo, with its distinctive architecture and tango houses. The city's oldest and once wealthiest district, lined with colonial-style mansions, San Telmo suffered a reversal of fortune after an epidemic of yellow fever in 1871, and has only recently been rejuvenated with an influx of new businesses. The order by which our Buenos Aires hotels are listed bares no reflection on our preference.