Hotels near Caminito and La Boca

La Boca grew up at the mouth of the Riachuelo as a Genoese dockworkers' neighbourhood. The corrugated iron houses were painted with leftover marine paint scrounged from the shipyards, which is why no two walls match. Caminito is the short pedestrian lane at the middle of it, a disused rail cutting turned into an open-air museum in 1959 at the urging of the painter Benito Quinquela Martin. His studio and home, now the Museo Benito Quinquela Martin at Avenida Pedro de Mendoza 1835, is the strongest thing in the barrio and usually the emptiest.

Two blocks away stands La Bombonera, the Boca Juniors stadium, which runs a museum and stadium tour. A plain practical note: stay on the Caminito tourist blocks and the marked route linking Caminito, the museum and the stadium. The streets beyond are ordinary residential blocks with nothing set up for visitors, and locals will tell you the same thing. Come in daylight, ideally between 11:00 and 17:00, and arrive by taxi or remis rather than walking in from outside the area.

Pro Tip: Eat before you arrive. Restaurants on Caminito charge two to three times the normal rate for indifferent food and frequently add a tango show cover to the bill. A coffee at the Quinquela Martin museum is a far better use of the money.