Santa Fe

Capital of its namesake province and an important commercial centre for the surrounding agricultural region, SANTA FE lies 475km north of Buenos Aires, along the banks of the Río Paraná. A sizeable city of about 400,000 inhabitants, Santa Fe is of interest mainly as a stopover – although even on those terms the city loses out to the nearby and more appealing cities of Rosario and Paraná. Apart from a particularly hot and humid climate in summer, owing to its low-lying riverside location, Santa Fe’s main handicap is a rather sprawling and disjointed layout that makes getting to and from the city’s modest attractions a bit of a slog.

Though Santa Fe is one of Argentina’s oldest settlements – it was founded in 1573 by Juan de Garay in Cayastá, 80km north, and then moved to its current site in 1660 after repeated Indian attacks – careless development has made for a rather scruffy city in which unremarkable modern buildings largely overshadow the few remnants of a fine architectural heritage. What is left is largely grouped around the city’s centro histórico, where there are a handful of sights worth visiting, notably the seventeenth-century Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco. The city’s port area has been given a smart revamp, with a hotel in a converted grain silo, casino, shops and boat trips attracting visitors.

Santa Fe is linked to Entre Ríos’ provincial capital, Paraná, by the Túnel Subfluvial Uranga-Sylvestre Begnis, better known as “Hernandarias”, which runs for nearly 3km under the Río Paraná.