Tigre Delta and San Isidro Day Trips from Buenos Aires

Just 28 kilometres north of central Buenos Aires, the urban avenue grid gives way to a labyrinth of subtropical river islands, weeping willows, and stilted wooden houses where the Paraná River meets the Río de la Plata. The riverside town of Tigre, founded in 1820 and named for the jaguars (tigres) once hunted along its banks, serves as the gateway to the Lower Paraná Delta, a vast 14,000-square-kilometre alluvial wetland extending 320 kilometres upstream. Paired with a stop in the colonial hilltop suburb of San Isidro on the way, Tigre makes the easiest and most rewarding half- or full-day rail excursion from the capital.

How to Get to San Isidro and Tigre by Train

Using your regular SUBE transit card, board the electric Mitre Line commuter train from Retiro Mitre station in Buenos Aires. You have two route options:

• Direct Mitre Line (Retiro to Tigre branch): Runs directly to Tigre terminal in approximately 55 minutes, passing through San Isidro along the way.
• Mitre Line to Bartolomé Mitre + Tren de la Costa: Ride the Mitre to Mitre branch from Retiro to Bartolomé Mitre station in Olivos, walk across the pedestrian bridge to Maipú station, and board the scenic light-rail Tren de la Costa, which hugs the Río de la Plata bluff through San Isidro to Delta station in Tigre.

Morning Stop at San Isidro Cathedral:

Step off the train at San Isidro to walk its cobbled colonial plaza overlooking the Río de la Plata ravine. Anchoring the square is the Cathedral of San Isidro Labrador, designed in French neo-Gothic style by Swiss-born architects Jacques Dunant and Charles Paquin and inaugurated in 1898 with a 68.6-metre needle spire and French stained-glass windows. Around Plaza Mitre, 18th- and 19th-century aristocratic summer residences include the Quinta Los Ombúes historic museum and the Villa Ocampo (UNESCO property at Elortondo 1837), the 1891 wooden summer house of writer Victoria Ocampo where Jorge Luis Borges, Rabindranath Tagore, and Igor Stravinsky stayed.

Cruising the Tigre Canals, Puerto de Frutos, and Museo de Arte Tigre

Continuing to Tigre, walk from the rail station to the ramped docks along the Tigre and Luján rivers. Here, varnished mahogany commuter boats known as lanchas colectivas (operated by lines such as Interisleña) and catamarans depart along the river channels past stilted island cottages, floating grocery boats, and late-19th-century British, Italian, and Spanish rowing clubhouses. Back on shore, browse wickerwork, regional honey, and Paraná timber crafts at the open-air Puerto de Frutos dock market, and walk 1.5 kilometres northwest along the Paseo Victorica river esplanade to the Museo de Arte Tigre (MAT), housed inside the 1912 French Belle Époque palace of the former Tigre Club.