Tigre Delta Boat Ride and Puerto de Frutos Tour from Buenos Aires

The drive from Buenos Aires to Tigre

Tigre lies about 30 kilometres north of central Buenos Aires, where the Luján River meets the maze of channels of the Paraná Delta. The tour starts with pickup at hotels in San Telmo, Puerto Madero, the Microcentro and Recoleta and a drive of around an hour and a half along the northern avenues, through the leafy suburbs of San Isidro and San Fernando. On the way the guide explains how the delta formed from sediment carried by the Paraná and how Tigre became the weekend playground of the city.

Travellers researching how to get to Tigre from Buenos Aires usually find the train or a long bus ride; this Tigre day trip from Buenos Aires replaces the logistics with one vehicle, one guide and a programme that fits into a morning or an afternoon, leaving you the rest of the day in the capital.

Paseo Victorica, the Naval Museum and the Mate Museum

Paseo Victorica is the elegant riverside promenade of Tigre, a kilometre of lawns, plane trees and belle-époque mansions along the Luján River where rowing clubs founded by British, Italian and Argentine communities still train every morning. The vehicle follows the promenade at a slow pace so you can see the Naval Museum, housed in the old naval workshops, and the Mate Museum, dedicated to the national drink of Argentina.

This is a panoramic section of about ten minutes rather than a visit inside the museums, which keeps the programme to five hours. Still, the view of the painted boathouses, the rowers on the river and the Victorian-style villas explains why Paseo Victorica is the most photographed street of a Tigre tour. If you fall in love with it, the train brings you back easily on another day.

Tigre Art Museum

Standing on a bend of the Luján River at the end of Paseo Victorica, the Tigre Art Museum occupies a cream-coloured palace built between 1910 and 1912 as a social club of the belle époque. Its rounded pavilions, balustraded terraces and grand staircase down to the water make it the most striking building in the town, and since 2006 it has held a collection of Argentine figurative art from the 19th and 20th centuries.

The tour makes a photo stop of about ten minutes in front of the museum, long enough to walk along the riverside railing and frame the façade with the water in front. Entry is not included; Tigre Art Museum tickets are inexpensive if you return another day, and the building alone is worth the stop for anyone who enjoys architecture.

Puerto de Frutos market

Puerto de Frutos was once the port where fruit, timber and wicker arrived from the delta islands; today it is the liveliest market in Tigre. Covered stalls and converted warehouses sell wicker furniture, baskets, wooden décor, leather goods, dulce de leche, honey and regional sweets, and small cafés line the quays where the old fruit boats tied up. Weekends are busy with families from Buenos Aires, weekdays are calmer.

You have about 30 minutes of free time here to browse, bargain and photograph the boats on the channel. It is the right place to buy a mate gourd or a jar of local jam, and to find a snack before the boat ride, since food is not included in the tour. Bring some cash, as the smaller stalls do not always accept cards.

Boat ride on the Paraná Delta

The Paraná Delta is a vast labyrinth of islands and channels, one of the largest deltas in the world and only an hour from the capital. The tour's one-hour catamaran ride follows the Luján River and the first channels of the delta, where wooden houses on stilts, jetties, island schools, chapels and floating grocery boats show how several thousand islanders live with no roads at all, only water.

From the open deck you watch rowers, water taxis and the ceibo and willow trees that lean over the brown water, while the guide points out landmarks. This Tigre Delta boat tour is the part most travellers remember, and it is shared with other visitors even on the private option. The best time to visit Tigre Delta is spring and summer, when the banks are green and the light is long.