It is the most populated and visited city in Patagonia, located in the Nahuel Huapi National Park, in the province of Río Negro, next to the Andes mountain range, among wonderful landscapes, ancient forests, snow-capped mountains, outstanding ski resorts, valleys covered with flowers and crystalline lakes. A host city par excellence, framed by some of the most important natural beauties in the country. It offers a wide variety of activities to enjoy: traditional excursions, lake walks, good gastronomy, adventure, tranquility and a diverse cultural agenda. In 2012 it was declared the national capital of adventure tourism, and in 2015 the national capital of chocolate. It receives around two million tourists annually, mainly in the winter season. It is in an area where you can observe and study the Andean condor. It is also one of the most important scientific and technological poles in America, with INVAP, a provincial high-tech company that designs and builds windmills, radars and satellites, among others.
To complete your visit to Bariloche, we recommend these places:
- Museum of Patagonia: It was inaugurated by the National Parks Administration on March 17, 1940. The building occupies the wing east of the Civic Center, a building complex declared a National Historic Monument. The first director of the Museum was Enrique Amadeo Artayeta, from whom the National Parks Administration bought the first anthropological collection to be exhibited. Today, the museum brings together an extensive ethnographic and historical collection that has grown over time thanks to donations, bequests and as a result of research.
- Bariloche Cathedral of Our Lady del Nahuel Huapi: It is the main Catholic temple of the city. It is surrounded by two squares with beautiful gardens. For its construction, the architect Alejandro Bustillo offered his project free of charge. In a neo-Gothic style with French reminiscences, the building is in the shape of a Latin cross with sober shapes. The material used for its construction was white stone for the walls and black slate for the roof. It has a 69 meter bell tower in the shape of a needle.
- Cerro Otto Cable Car Complex Art Gallery: Permanently exhibits replicas of the three most important works of Michelangelo Buonarroti: David, Pietà and Moses, in original size and traced directly from the Italian originals.
- Chocolate Museum: It is the newest of the museums , and the first in South America. In it you can learn the history of the product that has traveled the most in the world since the discovery of America, which the Mayans called the "food of the gods" and the Aztecs "cacahuatl" (the drink of kings and warriors).
- Museo Paleontológico: Created by the Bariloche Paleontological Association, its purpose is to detect and preserve the fossil record of the northwestern area of Argentine Patagonia. Among the specimens is a complete ichthyosaur from Cerro Lotena, which inhabited the Jurassic seas 150 million years ago. In addition, you can find the reconstruction of the jaw of a shark from the Tertiary era dating from approximately 22 million years ago, as well as insects, amphibians and plants. It also offers a collection of fossils of about 300 million years with the exuberant variety of flora and fauna that inhabited the sector. Among them, the Archeopterix that was the size of a raven and feathered like birds, although it retained its reptilian characteristics: jaws with teeth and a long tail. A dinosaur that inhabited the Cinco Saltos area during the Upper Cretaceous, 90 million years ago, is also on display and stands out for its small size, only 1.50 meters in length. You will have the opportunity to see a dinosaur egg up close, along with a photograph that shows its internal development.
