The city was virtually re-created at the end of the 19th century when the beef boom of the 1880s brought immense wealth and the city's Hispanic colonial buildings were levelled and replaced in the image of Paris, hence the title "the Paris of South America."
What was once the cultural Mecca of the Americas soon went into decline and this sense of faded grandeur makes it a fascinating place to wander around. It is a place to 'lose' oneself and soak up the ambience of a city that seems to exist in a world all of its own.
