PLACES TO VISIT IN THE CITY

Palacio Municipal - Town Hall
The Banco de la Nación Argentina (National Bank of Argentina) made this building to serve as its subsidiary in San Luis, and since 1954 it was transformed as headquarters of the Municipality of San Luis City. The edifice is located, conceptually talking, on a stage of transition between the "eclectic historicist academicism" and the renewing currents from the Art Nouveau.

In the first floor there is a big hall with an access door set on a portal in the corner, very high and illuminated by four windows and five huge "ojos de buey" or " ox' eyes" that are big round windows.

The facade shows some decorative elements like lion's figureheads sustaining hanging garlands. In the front there is a balustrade, two large cups (of the original five) and a central oval crowning, also decorated with garlands of flowers.

The Town Hall is now under a remodelling process to revaluate it. The goal is to maintain its valuable original architectonic characteristics remembering that in the hall still remains the original safe of the bank. In the central patio has recently been built a fountain adorned with granite "rijo dragon", a typical material of San Luis illuminated with ornamental streetlamps made in an old style.

Between San Martín and Belgrano.

Edificio del Concejo Deliberante - Building
Dr. Juan A. Barbeito, who was a prominent citizen that served in different public charges around the middle 19th century, built this building. It was the first two-story building to be constructed in the Province. The "big old house" of Italian line and concept was remodelled and recycled according to its original design.

The lamplights located in the front of the "big old house" are held by several iron corbels used in the past to support the lanterns with candles, which constituted the first public illumination in the City. Nowadays, it hosts the Honorable Concejo Deliberante of San Luis City. It still retains the ancient wooden staircase that takes to the second floor.

Located in Colon 551.

Centro Cultural Victor Saá - Cultural Center Victor Saá
This is a valuable house from the 18th century that belonged to Dr. Arancibia Rodríguez. Nowadays it is the Provincial Museum Dora Ochoa de Masramón. She was a notable writer woman of San Luis and an investigator of the rock paintings and folkloric arts of the Province. It offers important expositions of art history, archaeology and palaeontology. In the latter hall it is shown the biggest arachnid of the world, a petrified spider 35 centim long, which should have been measured alive a metre in diameter including its missing extremities.

Between Colon and Ayacucho.

Casa de Gobierno y Centro Administrativo - Governmental House and Administrative Center
This is a building with characteristics related to the French renaissance. Inaugurated in the year of 1911 by the Governor Adolfo Pampa Rodríguez Saá. The entrance room is an ample hall with columns from where two wings of a white marble staircase open up. In the higher floor there is a valuable sculpture called "El Puntano", made in cement by the artist Vicente Lucero. The foremost halls exhibit paintings by Carlos Pesce. There you can see as well a beautiful replica of the "Bandera de los Andes" or the "Andean Flag" donated by the Province of Mendoza.

This buildings are located in the corner of 9 de Julio with San Martín, Rivadavia and Ayacucho streets. Along with the new building in Ayacucho Street, they occupy a whole block, which serves to public governmental functions.

Plaza Independencia - Independence Square
Formerly called "Plaza Mayor" or "Plaza de Armas". Several times incursions of the Indians reached this Square, and in those violent times, the walls of the Dominicos Temple were the last shelter to the neighbours. In the centre of the square there is the statue of General José de San Martín riding his horse. A few m away from the monument there is a tree "sprout of the San Lorenzo pine" given by the Municipality of Rosario in 1923. In the Square you can see a monolith were the "Acta Notarial de Conmemoración y Homenaje de los 400 años de la Ciudad de San Luis" (affidavit of the commemoration and homage to the 400 years of the City of San Luis) with the signatures of all the citizens. This will be removed when the City gets to be 500 years old.

Convento de Santo Domingo - Saint Domingo Convent
The compound consists of the Colonial Convent and the new Church. The Convent is the oldest building in the City. Dating from the early 18th century, it was built to accommodate the Order of the Preachers of Saint Domingo de Guzman, the very first to come to the City.

The old Temple of Nuestra Señora del Rosario del Trono was built between 1836 and 1838 in an imposing Moorish style. The design and materials are the same used in many other temples of the Province. Its walls are one metre wide. Inside there are Italianising lines with columns leaning against the walls. The facade to the San Martín Street had three openings.

Declared National Historical Monument. The edifice keeps the Archivo Histórico or Historical Archives until November of 1994, after its restoration and revaluation it has become into a religious museum and also for exposition and cultural events.

The new Church is an exotic building of Moorish Arabic design. It was built between the years of 1935 and 1940. The facade features fine stucco relieves and includes inside an altar in mudéjar style and tiles from Sevilla.

Located between 25 de Mayo and San Martín.

La Aguada de Pueyrredón
La Aguada is the ranch that once belonged to Coronel Juan Martín de Pueyrredón, where he was actually confined in 1812.
Situated over one of the skirts of the Sierras of San Luis, as if embedded into the hollows of the almost vertical rising granite walls. It is a very pleasant location, surrounded by farming fields. It is a viewing point from where the extended western flatlands can be overlooked, meaning the ample steppe covered by thorn bushes and gardeners. In the Ranch are still preserved three gigantic ombú trees that were planted by the Forerunner himself. It was declared a National Historical Site in 1941.

El Chorrrillo
This is an area of "quintas" or country houses, weekend chalets and a residential neighbourhood. There is a nearby dike and a river beach resort. It is located at the East of the City.