El Ateneo Grand Splendid

The Grand Splendid opened in 1919 as a theatre of some thousand seats, with a painted cupola, gilded balconies and a heavy red curtain, and it went on to house tango recordings, a radio station and then a cinema before closing. In 2000 it was converted into a bookshop with unusual restraint: the structure was kept almost intact, so shelves now stand where the stalls were, the boxes and balconies serve as reading nooks with their original balustrades, the ceiling fresco painted by an Italian artist remains, and the stage, curtain still hanging, holds a cafe. The result is regularly named among the most beautiful bookshops in the world, and it functions as a working shop rather than a museum.

What you actually see

• The theatre interior - balconies, boxes and cupola preserved around the shelves.
• The stage cafe - tables on the stage beneath the original curtain.
• The ceiling fresco - the painted dome above the main floor.
• The reading boxes - former theatre boxes used as seating for browsers.

When to go

Year-round, and it makes an easy indoor stop on a hot or rainy day. Weekday mornings are quietest; weekends bring queues for photographs from the upper balcony. The cafe fills in the afternoon.

Honest expectations

The stock is overwhelmingly in Spanish, with a small foreign-language section, so most visitors come to look rather than buy. It is often crowded with people photographing rather than browsing. The cafe is ordinary and priced for the setting.

Nearby

Recoleta and its cemetery are a short walk; Palermo lies northwest.