Four days in Bariloche: a Swiss village that got the Andes instead of the Alps

Three nights on Lake Nahuel Huapi, with the Circuito Chico and its viewpoints, a full day at the black glacier under Tronador, and a cable car above the town.

Copy this itinerary
Length
4 days, 3 nights
Where you stay
San Carlos de Bariloche
Places
6 across 4 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Bariloche looks like an alpine resort because it was built to. Swiss, German and Italian settlers arrived at the end of the nineteenth century, the government of the 1930s decided the new national park needed a proper town, and the result is grey stone, steep roofs, Saint Bernards in the square and thirty chocolate shops on one street. It is entirely artificial and it works.

What it sits in is not artificial at all. Nahuel Huapi is a glacial lake the size of a small sea, with beech forest down to the water, granite spires behind it and a volcano at the far end with a glacier hanging off it that has gone black with rock. This was Argentina's first national park and it is still the standard by which the country judges the rest.

Three nights is enough to do the classic road circuit, one long day out to the glacier and a morning on a cable car, without spending the whole trip on a bus. It is not enough for the multi-day treks, which is a reason to come back rather than to hurry.

Highlights

  • The Circuito Chico, a loop of lakeside road that most people cycle in an afternoon
  • Cerro Campanario, half an hour up a chairlift for the best view in northern Patagonia
  • The ventisquero negro under Tronador, a glacier the colour of wet slate
  • The chocolate shops on Calle Mitre, which are a genuine local industry and not a gimmick
  • Beech forest, granite needles and cold clear water, all within twenty minutes of the main square

Where to stay

Bariloche

The town sits on the southern shore of Nahuel Huapi with the lake in front and the mountains behind, and about a hundred and fifty thousand people live in it, which makes it the largest place in Argentine Patagonia. The centre is small: a civic square of grey stone built in the 1940s, one shopping street, and a bus station.

Almost everything worth doing is west, along the road that runs out to the Llao Llao peninsula, or south towards Tronador. Three nights gives you the road circuit, the long day at the glacier, and a morning for the town and one cable car.

Day by day

Day 1 in San Carlos de Bariloche

The civic centre, the chocolate street and the hill above town

The Centro Civico is the town in one square: grey volcanic stone, wooden balconies, a clock tower and a statue of General Roca on a horse, built in 1940 to a design meant to look like it had grown out of the Andes. It is handsome, and it is worth knowing that the whole style was invented for the national park in the same decade the park was invented.

The Patagonia museum sits on the square and is the reason to be here first. It covers the geology, the wildlife and, most usefully, the Mapuche and Tehuelche peoples who were living here before the Argentine army's campaign of the 1880s cleared the land the town was then built on.

Afterwards, walk down Mitre and buy chocolate. The shops are a real inheritance from the Italian and Swiss families who settled here, they sell by the hundred grams, and the ones with a queue of Argentines are the ones to join.

Finish on Cerro Otto, ten minutes from town, with a rotating cafe at the top and the whole lake laid out below.

  1. 14:30

    Museo de la Patagonia

    Culture

    The regional museum on the civic square: mounted Patagonian wildlife, a strong section on the indigenous peoples of the lakes, and the history of how the park and the town came to be built. An hour, and a good hour.

  2. 16:00

    Chocolate on Calle Mitre

    Eat

    Buy a bag by weight rather than a box: the bitter chocolate with almonds is the local standard, and the submarino, a bar of chocolate dropped into hot milk, is what to order sitting down.

  3. 17:30

    Cerro Otto

    Nature

    A cable car from the edge of town up a hill with a revolving restaurant on top and a view over Nahuel Huapi and the whole ring of mountains. The ticket usually includes the shuttle from the centre. Late afternoon is the time to go up.

With more time: The Huemul Project site sits on an island in the lake and is the strangest story in Patagonia: in the early 1950s an Austrian physicist convinced Peron he could build the world's first fusion reactor there, was given an island and a fortune, and produced nothing at all. The ruins can be visited by boat. In town, the tap rooms open early and the walk along the lakeshore back from Cerro Otto takes about forty minutes.

Day 2 in San Carlos de Bariloche

The Circuito Chico and the chairlift at Campanario

The Circuito Chico is a twenty five kilometre loop of road west of town around the Llao Llao peninsula, past four lakes, a stone chapel, a famous hotel and a series of viewpoints, and it is the single thing everybody does here. Cycle it if the weather is good, drive it if it is not, or take the number 20 bus out and walk sections of it.

Stop at Punto Panoramico, at the Llao Llao hotel, and at Bahia Lopez where the road turns. The Bosque de Arrayanes on the peninsula is a short walk through the cinnamon-barked myrtle that grows almost nowhere else.

The chairlift up Cerro Campanario is on the same road and takes seven minutes, or half an hour on foot if you would rather earn it. From the top you see Nahuel Huapi on one side, Lago Moreno on the other and the peninsula between them, which is the view every photograph of Bariloche is taken from. Go up in the late afternoon when the light comes across the water.

  1. 09:30

    Circuito Chico

    Visit

    Twenty five kilometres of road around the Llao Llao headland, along Lago Nahuel Huapi and Lago Moreno. Rentable bicycles at the start, a bus if you would rather not, and viewpoints roughly every three kilometres. Half a day at a gentle pace.

  2. 13:30

    Lunch on the peninsula

    Eat

    There are cafes and cervecerias along the circuit, several with terraces over the water. Trout, smoked meats and a beer brewed within five kilometres.

  3. 15:30

    Cerro Campanario

    Visit

    A short chairlift to a summit café with a view of two lakes, the peninsula and the mountains behind. Seven minutes up, or thirty on the path beside it. The most photographed viewpoint in Argentine Patagonia and it earns it.

With more time: The Sendero de los Arrayanes, a three kilometre walk near the Llao Llao golf course, is the quiet alternative if the circuit is busy. Cerro Lopez, at the far end of the loop, has a three hour climb to a mountain refuge with a much bigger view and a much emptier path.

Day 3 in San Carlos de Bariloche

The long day out to Tronador and the black glacier

Tronador is the volcano that closes the southern end of the park, straddling the Chilean border, and it is a long way in: about two and a half hours by road each way, most of it on gravel along Lago Mascardi with a stretch that is one-way and timed, which is why nearly everybody does it on an organised bus.

The reason to go is the ventisquero negro, the black glacier. Ice comes off the mountain, drags rock down with it, and refreezes at the bottom as a dirty grey wall over a lake of meltwater, with waterfalls dropping onto it from the cliffs above. It looks industrial and it is entirely natural, and there is nothing else like it in the country.

The buses stop at Pampa Linda, where there is a lodge, a short walk to a waterfall and the start of the serious treks. Take a packed lunch; what is sold up there is limited and expensive.

This is a twelve hour day and it is worth every hour of it. Do not plan anything for the evening.

  1. 08:30

    Cerro Tronador

    Nature

    A full-day trip to the foot of Tronador for the black glacier, the Saltillo de las Nalcas waterfall and the meadow at Pampa Linda. Around two hours and a half each way on gravel, most of it beside Lago Mascardi. Book the day before.

  2. 13:00

    Packed lunch at Pampa Linda

    Eat

    Buy it in town the night before. There is a lodge at Pampa Linda serving food, but the queue is the whole bus and the meadow is a better place to eat.

With more time: If the road is closed, and it sometimes is, the substitute day is a boat from Puerto Panuelo out to Isla Victoria and the myrtle forest at Los Arrayanes on the far shore, which takes about the same time and involves considerably less gravel. The Camino de los Siete Lagos, the road north to San Martin de los Andes past seven lakes, is the other full-day option and the more beautiful drive of the two.

Day 4 in San Carlos de Bariloche

Cerro Catedral, and the flight out

Catedral is nineteen kilometres from town and it is the biggest ski area on the continent, with over a hundred kilometres of runs. In winter that is the whole point. In summer the cable car still runs, the top station has a terrace at nearly two thousand metres, and from it you look south into the granite needles that give the mountain its name and north over the lake.

It is also the trailhead for the walk to Refugio Frey, a hut beside a small lake ringed by rock spires, which is widely held to be the best day walk in the region. It takes four to five hours each way from the base, so it is a full day and not a departure-morning one.

Flights to Buenos Aires leave in the afternoon and the airport is twenty minutes from the centre, so a morning on the mountain and a late lunch in town fits.

  1. 09:00

    Catedral Alta Patagonia

    Nature

    The largest ski centre in South America, with a lift capacity that reads like a small city's transport plan. Out of season the cable car runs to a terrace near the summit for the view over the lake and into the needles. Buses go from the centre.

  2. 13:30

    Last lunch in town

    Eat

    A parrilla near the centre for slow-cooked lamb, or a brewery tap for trout and a pint. Both are cheap and both are better than anything at the airport.

With more time: With a whole day rather than a morning, the walk from the Catedral base up to Refugio Frey is the one to do: five hours up through beech forest to a hut, a lake and the granite towers, and five back. In winter, replace all of the above with a lift pass.

Before you go

Getting in and getting around

Flights from Buenos Aires take about two hours and there are several a day, plus connections from El Calafate and Sao Paulo. The airport is fifteen kilometres east of town on a local bus route. Coaches from Buenos Aires take around twenty hours, which is a lot of pampa, and from Mendoza or El Bolson they are a reasonable option.

Local buses are good, run by one company, and cover the Circuito Chico, Cerro Catedral and Campanario. They take the same SUBE card used in Buenos Aires, or a contactless bank card, so bring the card you already have rather than buying another.

Renting a car for one day is the efficient way to do the Circuito Chico if there are two or more of you. Hire bicycles are the better way if the weather is kind and your legs are willing, because the road undulates constantly.

Weather, and when to come

This is the meeting point of the wet Andes and the dry steppe, so the town can be under rain while the airport fifteen kilometres east is in sun. Summer, from December to February, is long, bright, windy and cold at night. Autumn, in April and May, is the most beautiful, when the beech turns red and the crowds have gone.

Winter runs June to September and is the reason half the country comes here: Cerro Catedral is the largest ski area in South America and the town is full of school groups celebrating their final year, which is either endearing or a good reason to visit in another season.

The wind is the constant. It makes ten degrees feel like three, and it decides whether the chairlifts run.

Eating and drinking

Two local industries: chocolate and beer. Calle Mitre has a dozen chocolate houses that have been making it since the immigrant families set up shop, and the good ones sell by weight from a counter rather than in gift boxes. The craft breweries came later and are now everywhere, with several tap rooms in town and more on the road out to Llao Llao.

The food is Patagonian: lamb cooked slowly over an open fire, trout from the lakes, venison and wild boar on the smarter menus, and a great deal of smoked cheese and salami sold as picada. The old parrillas near the centre do it best and none of them is expensive by capital standards.

Where to stay

In town is convenient, cheap and noisy, with everything walkable and the buses leaving from the door. The road west along the lake towards Llao Llao is where the views are, with cabins and hotels strung along it and a bus every twenty minutes, and it is the better choice if you have three nights rather than two.

Prices double in January, February and the ski season, and the whole town books out in July for the school trips.

Staying safe

Bariloche is comfortable and the usual small-town cautions apply. The one specific warning worth taking seriously is about the trails that start from the edge of the city itself, where there have been repeated robberies of walkers. Do not hike those alone, and use the organised trailheads out along the lake instead.

On the mountain, the risk is weather rather than people. Register at the refuge or with the park office for anything longer than a marked day walk, and turn around when the cloud comes down.

Bariloche gets dismissed as the chocolate town, and the shops on Mitre do their best to earn that. Give it three nights and the proportions correct themselves: the town is a pleasant base and the park around it is one of the finest pieces of country in Argentina, with a glacier, a hundred kilometres of trail and a lake you can see the bottom of.

North from here is the Seven Lakes road and the Chilean crossing at Puerto Blest. South is a very long way to the glaciers, and the flight is the sensible way to do it.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Bariloche or El Calafate?
Different countries in effect. Bariloche is lakes, forest and beer at the northern end of Patagonia and it is easy, green and cheap. El Calafate is a thousand kilometres south, treeless, windswept and there for one enormous glacier and the mountains at El Chalten. If you only have one, and you want the Patagonia of the photographs, go south.
Do I need a car?
No. The buses reach the Circuito Chico, Campanario and Catedral, and Tronador is done on an organised trip whether or not you have a car, because of the one-way timed road. A car for one day makes the circuit more comfortable, and that is all.
What about the Seven Lakes road?
It runs north from Bariloche through Villa la Angostura to San Martin de los Andes and it is one of the great drives in Argentina. As a day trip from here it is ten hours in a vehicle for a lot of viewpoints. Better done as a leg of a longer journey, with a night at either end.
Is Bariloche expensive?
For Argentina, yes, especially in January, February and July, when hotel prices roughly double and the good restaurants need booking. Outside those months it is very reasonable, and the buses, the museums and the walking are cheap in any season.
Can I change this plan?
Yes. Copy it, swap Catedral for the Frey walk, drop the glacier day if twelve hours on a bus is not your idea of a holiday.