Places Where I Forgot to Check Time: El Ateneo Grand Splendid Bookshop

Buenos Aires is one of the most European cities in Latin America. Built by Italian migrants, this city both resembles Paris with its long and wide streets and New York as an example of grid city planning; with its crisscrossing cobblestones and cafés on corners that lure you inside, it is a place where one can walk for hours. One of the places one should stop by while walking around cafés, bookstores, museums and parks with a big smile on one’s face is El Ateneo Bookstore. Having started operating as a theatre in 1919, this eclectic building now serves as the bookstore of El Ateneo Publishing owned by the Llhassa Group, one of the biggest publishing houses of Argentina. You may lose your bearing amongst the book shelves that replaced the audience seats, sit at its café and catch your breath while promenading in one of the most beautiful cities of the world.