There is both nothing and a lot to do in La Plata.

La Plata isn’t Buenos Aires, both porteños and platenses will happily tell you so. Buenos Aires is fun but tiring—the streets are always packed, and the city is full of international tourists who, for some reason, are all taking tours and a lot of space. La Plata is a low-key university city with quiet streets in the summer, and I was the only foreigner around (well, there are Venezuelans, but there are Venezuelans everywhere!)

I stumbled upon a tourism info centre (by accident, obviously) the day I arrived. I pushed the wooden door, the first of the many doors I would push in La Plata.

“Oh, there’s nothing going on in January,” said the first woman. There were four of them, all sharing a single desk covered with maps (no shit, it’s an essential in this city), sipping mate.

“We have cultural events,” offered a second one. “Many of them. Just not in January.”

“Take a map!” the third one suggested.

The fourth one handed me two.

Okay, so I had just committed to staying for four days in a city that tourism experts couldn’t sell. Good job, Juliette.

I started wandering around the city. I suspect the four women were high on mate because I did find plenty of interesting places and people. La Plata is a city full of smart and kind people who invite you into their world if you just push the door open.

Pasaje Dardo Rocha

Alright, this cultural centre was mostly closed because it was being renovated. The small museum next to it wasn’t very impressive.

I would have visited a few more art museums but they were all closed for the summer or for whatever reason.

Catedral de La Plata

This is what La Plata is famous for—a giant neo-Gothic cathedral, the 58th tallest church in the world. It’s massive, with towers rising 112 m.

Museo de Ciencias Naturales de La Plata

The Neo-classical building is a major museum of anthropology, geology, zoology, paleontology and botany. This is an old-style museum with rooms full of various bones and stuffed animals, one of these places that may or may not come alive at night. I didn’t check, sorry, but it’s an interesting museum to explore for 4,000 pesos (US$4).

Museo de Arte y Memoria

This time, I had to ring a bell before pushing the door open. It was worth it. The MAM is a space to reflect on authoritarianism and democracy. The current exhibition focuses on how poverty was planned by the dictatorship and I found it fascinating.

Comisión Provincial por la Memoria, Centro de Documentación y Archivo

The kind woman who introduced me to the MAM above sent me to the Centro de Documentación y Archivo for another perspective on the 40 years of dictatorship.

By law, in Argentina, all former places used by the military dictatorship are now “sites of memory.” This is one of them. It used to be where operated the Dirección de Inteligencia de la Policía de la provincia de Buenos Aires (Dippba), the police service responsible for the kidnapping and “disappearance” of pretty much anyone suspected of being against the military dictatorship.

I was able to browse through the archives. It’s just crazy to see massive repression in action, and the way citizens were tracked, followed and arrested.

Plaza Moreno

This is where I ended up most evening, sometimes by chance, sometimes because I actually took the right diagonal, for once. This is La Plata’s busiest public square, right between the cathedral and the city hall, and the best place for great sunsets.

I did enjoy La Plata. It was exactly what I needed at this point, during this trip.