The Museo Gauchesco Ricardo Guiraldes is the town's essential stop. It stands in Parque Criollo, a broad riverside park that feels more like an estancia than a municipal museum, and it uses saddles, silverwork, leather goods, paintings, and period rooms to explain the world of the gaucho.
The museum is named for Ricardo Guiraldes, the local writer whose Don Segundo Sombra turned the working horseman of the pampa into a national literary figure. Give it time: this is the place that makes Areco more than a pleasant day trip.