The huge Tres de Febrero Park, often known as Los bosques de Palermo (The Forests of Palermo), is one of the city's most popular open spaces. It's the perfect place to relax and unwind, walk, run, cycle, rollerskate, or have a picnic with friends.
Opened in 1875 as an initiative by president Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the park was named after the date of a decisive battle in the Argentine and Uruguayan civil wars (the Battle of Caseros on the third of February 1852; a battle that led to the defeat and exile of Argentine president Juan Manuel de Rosas, whose lands were confiscated by the state and used to create the park). The original project was led by the architects Ernesto Oldendorf, Fernando Mauduit and Jordan Wysocky, and completed by Jules Dormal, who also worked on the Teatro Colón and the National Congress building. The subsequent extensions and remodelling was carried out between 1892 and 1913 by the lanscape architect Charles Thays, who also designed the Botanical Garden, the Parque Centenario and many of the city's other parks.
The park features two lakes with pedalos for hire, a planetarium and the Rosedal de Palermo, a rose garden with more than 8,000 roses from 93 different species. The rose garden also has an Andalucian patio donated by the Spanish city of Seville in 1929 and a poets' garden where you can find the busts of various literary figures, from Dante Alighieri to Buenos Aires' own Jorge Luis Borges. There are many other sculptures including a marble image of Little Red Riding Hood which was acquired by the city authorities in 1937.
Lo de Hansen, one of the city's most popular nightspots between 1895 and 1910, and an important venue in the history of tango, was located in the park at the corner of Avenida Figueroa Alcorta y Sarmiento, where today you can find the Planetarium.
See more in the Palermo neighbourhood.