San Carlos de Bariloche

The shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi were inhabited for thousands of years by Tehuelche and Puelche peoples, increasingly influenced by the Mapuche from the 17th century. The city's name comes from the Mapudungun Vuriloche, "people from the other side of the mountain", after a pass the Poya people used to cross the Andes. Jesuits from Chiloé founded a mission by the lake in 1670 and again in 1703; the second was destroyed in 1717. In the 1880s the Argentine army displaced the Indigenous communities, and the 1881 border treaty confirmed the area as Argentine.

For decades, though, the lake looked west to Chile. In 1895 Carlos Wiederhold, a German-Chilean from Osorno, opened a shop called La Alemana, from which the modern town grew, and Chilean merchants controlled the trade over the passes to Puerto Montt. The town was founded officially by decree on 3 May 1902. Settlers from Chiloé, Germany and Switzerland farmed the valleys, and commerce depended on Chile until the railway arrived in 1934.

From then on the national parks administration under Ezequiel Bustillo turned Bariloche into a resort for the Argentine elite. His brother Alejandro designed the cathedral and the Llao Llao Hotel, and Ernesto de Estrada's stone Civic Centre opened in 1940. In the 1950s Perón's government tried to build a fusion reactor on Huemul Island; the Atomic Centre and Instituto Balseiro followed. In 1995 the city made headlines in the international press when it became known as a place where Nazi war criminals had lived, among them the former SS officer Erich Priebke, for many years director of its German school.

Bariloche cultivates an Alpine image: stone and timber buildings, chalets, St Bernard dogs posed for photographs and fondness for chocolate. It is twinned with St. Moritz, Aspen and Queenstown, and with several towns across the Andes in Chile, reflecting both its resort identity and its old ties to the west. Congress named it the national capital of adventure tourism in 2012.

Two crowds define the calendar. In winter skiers, many from Brazil, fill Cerro Catedral; in many months Argentine secondary-school students arrive on the graduation trip that is a national rite of passage, and families come to celebrate daughters' quinceañeras. The Club Andino Bariloche, which runs mountain huts in the park, anchors a strong mountaineering culture, and hiking, climbing, fishing and rafting are part of local life.

The city also has a serious intellectual side. Physicists trained at the Instituto Balseiro, engineers at INVAP, which builds reactors and satellites, and researchers at the universities make it a science town. The Camerata Bariloche, a string ensemble founded by the violinist Alberto Lysy in 1967, carries the city's name. Mapuche people are also part of the city's population.

The 2022 census counted about 136,000 people, making Bariloche the largest city in the Patagonian Andes. The urban area is unusually spread out, more than 220 km² and some 50 km from east to west, from the centre along the lake to Llao Llao and south to Lake Gutiérrez. Neighbourhoods such as Melipal and Playa Bonita are known by their kilometre on the lake road.

Tourism is the main economy all year, making Bariloche one of the most visited destinations in the country after Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata. Science and technology are the second pillar, with the Atomic Centre, INVAP and university campuses, and the army's mountain infantry and mountain warfare school are based here.

Life follows the seasons: a crowded July, a busy summer, quieter spring and autumn. The municipal landfill on Route 40, with its recurring fires and people searching it for food, has been a long-running environmental and social issue.

Chocolate is Bariloche's signature, as much a part of its identity as its Swiss-style architecture. Many shops in the city make and sell chocolate in all sorts of varieties. At Easter the city's chocolate festival has produced record-breaking bars and Easter eggs.

The lakes and mountains supply the rest of the menu. Trout from the lakes and rivers is the classic fish, and cordero patagónico, Patagonian lamb roasted whole over an open fire, is the classic meat, alongside the usual Argentine parrilla of beef. The calafate, the blue-black berry of a shrub that is a symbol of Patagonia, turns up in jams. Wild boar and venison, part of the meat dishes of the wider region, also appear on menus.

Bariloche and nearby El Bolsón are centres of Argentine craft beer, brewed with hops grown in the region, and brewpubs fill the centre and the lake road. Ice cream is taken seriously here as everywhere in Argentina, and mate is always at hand.