La Plata: The capital of Buenos Aires province

La Playa is a city about an hour by bus out of Buenos Aires and is actually the capital of the province of Buenos Aires.

The city itself is an example of a fully planned city and like our capital, Canberra, has the feeling of being a little too planned out. All of the streets are set out in a grid with a plaza at each intersection. Each of the main streets are lines with trees and some have a wide tree lined promenade down the centre.

Street with a promenade

The city also boasts a very impressive Gothic style cathedral - which I was told was the "grandest cathedral in the country".

La Plata cathedral

The main altar in La Plata cathedral

Stained glass in La Plata cathedral

The cathedral commenced construction in 1884 and was finally completed in 1999. It is an impressive structure - much more like the styles of the cathedrals in Europe, rather than the smaller cathedral in Buenos Aires.

In addition to the cathedral, La plata boasts a very impressive park, known as el bosques (the woods). The park centres around a canal and artificial lake.

The canal

The lake

Despite multiple signs warning of contamination, the canal and lake were very popular fishing spots.

Dotted around the park were a number of outdoor food "restsurants" which were basically outdoor parillas (grills) with a few plastic tables around them.

As it was only lunchtime, I only had a steak from one called "El Museo" (next to the museum, funnily enough) and it was the best steak I've had so far.

In fact, it inspired me to go a full parilla later that night.

This parilla consisted not only of steak, ribs and chicken but also grilled kidneys and chinchulines (cow intestines). It was a bit of a meat overload but delicious nonetheless - even the chinchulines ;)