☰Plaza San Martín

The leafy square at the top of Calle Florida, named for José de San Martín — the general who liberated Argentina, Chile, and half of Peru from Spanish rule. The plaza's north side holds the Palacio Paz (now an officer's club), the Kavanagh Building (once South America's tallest), and, across the road, the Torre Monumental — the former Torre de los Ingleses, a gift from the British community of Buenos Aires in 1916 and modelled on Big Ben. The Malvinas War memorial to the Argentine dead of 1982 sits directly opposite it, a careful diplomatic arrangement.