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Buenos Aires · Mysteries & legends

Underground Buenos Aires: Tunnels, Cannonballs and Forbidden Love

Beneath Monserrat and San Telmo runs another city: tunnels whose purpose is still debated, streams turned into drains and houses that hold stories of love and fear. This route heads south along calle Defensa and, at every stop, separates what the documents say from what tradition tells.

  • 5 stops
  • 2.3 km
  • 1 h 35 min
  • Free
Start with GPS Read about this stop 1
Lit brick gallery in the tunnels of El Zanjón de Granados

The route

Stop by stop

  1. 1 The Tunnels of the Manzana de las LucesBeneath the Jesuits' block run colonial galleries that nobody can say for sure why they were dug.
  2. 2 Basilica of Santo DomingoIn 1807 British troops barricaded themselves in this church; its tower still bears the marks of the fight.
  3. 3 El Zanjón de Granados and the Casa MínimaA stream buried beneath a mansion and, around the corner, the narrowest house in the city with its legend of freedom.
  4. 4 The Antigua Tasca de CuchillerosA whitewashed colonial house and the legend of Margarita, the daughter who fled a forced marriage.
  5. 5 Parque LezamaSome historians place the first Buenos Aires here: the settlement of 1536, consumed by hunger.

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Start with GPS

Guide mode

Walk it with GPS.

Open guide mode on your phone: you’ll see your position and the distance to each stop, and we’ll let you know when you arrive. Then read or listen.

Start with GPS

  1. Turn on your location

  2. Walk to the spot

  3. Check the photo and listen

What you’ll discover

Underground Buenos Aires: Tunnels, Cannonballs and Forbidden Love

The city below

Jesuit tunnels, cisterns and the buried bed of a stream: Buenos Aires has a basement, and you can visit it.

Legends, clearly labelled

A freed slave, a daughter locked up by her father, a doomed founding: we tell you what's tradition and what's proven.

Traces you can touch

Shot marks on a tower, captured British flags and the narrowest house in the city.

Keep exploring

More routes in Buenos Aires

Back to Buenos Aires
HistoryFrom Colonial Fort to Capital: Buenos Aires in Six Stops EssentialsEssential Buenos Aires: From Plaza de Mayo to the Obelisk