The Argentine Navy has two old warships operating as museums near the Buenos Aires CBD. They are moored about 200m apart in the old cargo docks in an area that has now been redeveloped into a significant tourist / leisure area (quite like Darling Harbour for those who know Sydney). They still appear to be run by the Navy (the staff are uniformed sailors), and they are attracting large numbers of visitors due to their location (the entry fee of only 500 pesos (about USD 50c) each probably helps as well).Presidente Sarmiento is referred to variously as a frigate or a sail training ship. She was built in England in 1897, and did some 39 extended sail training voyages around the world training the future Officers of the Argentine Navy. She still seems to be pretty close to her original configuration - most of the original guns appear to still be onboard - and she is well maintained. The tour route takes in the upper deck (but not the foc'sle or poop deck), and also the main deck - with the forward mess-decks having been converted into galleries - mainly focused on her training voyages. In addition to the ship, there are three naval guns of a similar vintage on the adjacent wharf, but no signs to indicate what they were or where they came from.Uruguay is a Corvette was built in Britain in 1874. She had quite an eventful service, and was most notably used as a support ship for Antarctic operations. She is now disarmed, but still in a pretty good material condition. The tour route is similar to that on Sarmiento, however it also takes in the foc'sle and the raised bridge area in the centre of the ship. The below deck galleries in this case are focused on the Antarctic activities of Uruguay and other Argentine naval vessels.Both of the ships have quite extensive awnings rigged - which makes some sense given the weather in Buenos Aires - but it does tend to ruin the photographs you can take. Neither ship operated a gift-shop.These ships are a little outside my area of interest, but were worth seeing given they were only a ten-minute walk from my hotel, and I can appreciate the historic significance and relative rarity of these two ships - we are fortunate that the Argentines have seen fit to conserve both of them, and maintain them in such good condition.(1) - Photos of Sarmiento:
Photographs of Uruguay
