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Some thirty resorts dot the Atlantic Coast of Buenos Aires Province stretching from San Clemente in the north, to Bahia Blanca, nearly 700km south of the capital. Ranging in size from tiny Dunamar to the country's premier coastal resort, Mar del Plata , the resorts are generally characterized by wide sandy beaches, fringed by dunes. And with the exception of Mar del Plata, which has some interesting historical buildings and is a thriving city in its own right, the beach is the main reason to visit any of the towns along this stretch of coast. Most of the resorts are popular with families - San Clemente, Miramar and Necochea are notably so. Still family oriented, but attracting a younger crowd, too, Pinamar is the region's most upmarket resort - though bohemian Villa Gesell , to the south, makes for a more laid-back and enjoyable destination. Of all the resorts, though, Mar del Plata is the liveliest, with crowds in the city's numerous clubs and restaurants by night to match those that pack its beaches by day. If you simply hanker after peace and quiet, slightly more isolated spots such as sleepy Mar del Sud or Dunamar , set among pine forests, are worth checking out. Bahia Blanca in the far south of the province has a port but no beach; however there are connections from the town to the nearby coastal resorts of Monte Hermoso and Pehuen-Co . By far the busiest months to visit the coast are January and February, when you'll need to book accommodation - and public transport - in advance. November, December and March are good times to visit - though it's less lively at this time of year, the weather should still be good and prices will be a lot lower. March is traditionally the month when pensioners take their holidays. Some 260km to the northwest of San Clemente, but lying on the River Plate rather than the Atlantic Coast, is Buenos Aires' provincial capital La Plata . Often treated as a day-trip from Buenos Aires, La Plata marks the start of the coastal route south; the city was founded in the late nineteenth century on rationalist principales and houses one of Latin America's most famous museums, the Museo de Ciencias Naturales. Inland , the province of Buenos Aires - covering some 307,000 square kilometres to the south and west of the capital - is dominated by the vast expanse of the Pampa , a region almost synonymous with Argentina itself. This is the country's heartland: birthplace of the gaucho and source of much of Argentina's wealth - the grain and beef produced by this incredibly fertile farmland constitute the bulk of the country's exports to the rest of the world. The pampa is certainly not Argentina's most dramatic landscape - its outstanding feature is its almost unremitting flatness - but this unbroken stretch of land and sky has its own subtle beauty. At any time the pampa's sheer limitless sense of space is mesmerizing, but in dramatic weather, or when an incredibly intense blue sky arches over the fields of ripe sunflowers, the pampa is transformed into a vibrant canvas covered with great sweeps of colour. This region is almost entirely cultivated and the province - the country's most populated - is dotted with strikingly similar towns whose main business is agriculture rather than tourism. A major exception, however, is San Antonio de Areco , lying just over 100km west of the capital. A charmingly old-fashioned town of cobbled streets and well-preserved nineteenth-century architecture, San Antonio de Areco stages Argentina's most important gaucho festival, the Dia de la Tradicion , held each November. Far less visited, though with a modest charm of their own, the lakeside towns of Lobos and San Miguel del Monte , both lying around 100km south of the capital, make possible stopovers on your way south - or overnight trips from Buenos Aires. Around Lobos and San Antonio de Areco and indeed throughout the province, you'll find some of Argentina's most traditional and luxurious estancias - great places to spend a night or two if you fancy a taste of the high life. The pampa's most dramatic and unexpected region is the Sierra de la Ventana mountain range, lying 550km southwest of Buenos Aires. Offering a welcome change of scenery from the surrounding flat farmlands, the range is some six hundred million years old and contains the highest peak in the province, Cerro de la Ventana (1134m). Together with the popular resort of Tandil some 300km to the northeast, which is backed by a low range of hills, this region offers the best opportunities for activities such as horseriding, walking and camping in the province. Heading southwest out of Buenos Aires, the RN5 is one of the major routes towards the south of Argentina. Although it is a largely unremarkable highway through cultivated lands, there are a couple of towns worth visiting along its way. For a mass display of religious devotion, head for Lujan , some 70km to the west of Buenos Aires. The town is named after Argentina's patron saint, the Virgin of Lujan, and her shrine here, housed in a vast neo-Gothic basilica, attracts around four million visitors a year. Just southwest of Lujan lies the quiet and attractive town of Mercedes , whose authentic pulperia offers a glimpse into Argentina's gaucho past. The RN5 terminates at Santa Rosa , the modest provincial capital of La Pampa Province, which borders Buenos Aires to the southwest. La Pampa Province is smaller and far less populous than that of Buenos Aires and its scant network of roads seems designed to do little more than bear the traveller away from this little-visited region. Place names such as Arbol Solo ("solitary tree") conjure up an image of desolate lands punctuated by frontier settlements and to some extent this is a fair summary of this geographically transitional province, whose landscape merges with the humid pampa to the northeast and the Patagonian steppes to the south and climbs gradually to meet the foothills of the Andes to the west. The province's main tourist attraction is the Parque Nacional Lihue Calel , just over 200km southwest of the capital, whose low sierras add some drama to this otherwise gentle landscape. As far as practicalities go, Buenos Aires is probably Argentina's easiest province to get around: its 307,000 square kilometres are dotted with towns and crisscrossed with roads and railways, making it pretty straightforward to negotiate using public transport . Bear in mind, though, that services to the coast are greatly reduced out of season. La Pampa Province, though much less populated and still with large areas untouched by tourism, is nonetheless well connected by routes running south from the capital into Patagonia. If you are planning on heading off the beaten track, note that many of the region's secondary roads are unsealed, and though easily negotiable in dry weather, they may become impassable after heavy rainfall.
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