La Boca is Buenos Aires' most colourful neighbourhood — a working-class district at the mouth of the Riachuelo River where Italian immigrant shipyard workers painted their corrugated-iron houses with leftover ship paint, creating the rainbow streetscape that has become the defining image of the city. Caminito, a pedestrianised alley-turned-open-air-museum, is the epicentre — a short, curved street of painted houses, tango dancers, street artists, and souvenir vendors that is simultaneously the most touristy and most photogenic block in Buenos Aires.
The neighbourhood's history is inseparable from immigration. The Genoese families who settled here in the late 19th century built their conventillos (tenement houses) from corrugated metal and wood salvaged from the docks, and the tradition of painting them in bright colours — originally with whatever marine paint was available — became an aesthetic identity that the neighbourhood has maintained ever since. The artist Benito Quinquela Martín, who grew up in La Boca and spent his career painting the port and its workers, was the driving force behind Caminito's transformation from a derelict rail siding to a street gallery in the 1950s.
La Bombonera stadium, home of Boca Juniors — Argentina's most popular football club and the team Diego Maradona called his own — is a few blocks from Caminito, and on match days the neighbourhood vibrates with the kind of intensity that only South American football generates. The museum inside the stadium is a shrine to Maradona and Boca's history. Visitors should stay on the tourist streets around Caminito — the surrounding neighbourhood can be rough, particularly after dark.
Verified Facts
Italian immigrants, primarily from Genoa, settled La Boca in the late 19th century
Houses were painted with leftover ship paint from the nearby docks
Artist Benito Quinquela Martín transformed Caminito in the 1950s
La Bombonera is the home stadium of Boca Juniors
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Buenos Aires, Argentina
