Santa Fe City is the capital of Santa Fe Province, situated in the North East of the country and surrounded by rivers Paraná and Salado. It is connected to Paraná (the capital of Entre Ríos Province) by an underwater tunnel.
This small city of about 750 square km and a population of 500.000 inhabitants is known by other provinces as Santa Fe “La Cordial” (friendly). For some reason, certain provinces in Argentina have a nickname like this. You have Salta “La Linda” (The cute or pretty), Córdoba “La docta” (the erudite), and so on.
We recommend you visit this city in fall, winter or spring, as most of the time in summer is extremely hot, with temperatures rising the 45 degrees. The “heat waves” are usual, and the level of humidity worsens the situation.
It is home to many universities and to many Argentinian students that come from other provinces to study here, as well as foreigners who come on exchange programs and stay for a semester.
Most visitors remember Santa Fe as a friendly and warm city, not only for its temperature but mainly for its people. Life quality is a big plus. Being a small city, people work mornings and then late afternoons and evenings, with a gap from noon to 4pm in which they rest, or what they call “siesta”. People come back home to have lunch with their families, take a nap, go to the gym or take a course on some interest, and then go back to work at 4pm (In some cases people work from 9 to 5, but this is not the usual thing).
During weekends the promenade is full of people who go there to jog, walk their dogs, skate, take a bike ride, sit down at the benches and have some “mate” (traditional infusion) with friends and family, or in the evenings share some beers and play some music from their car radios and hang out.
Another main feature of “santafesinos” (people from Santa Fe) is that they have a special weekday for friends. Yes! A fixed day in which all the members of the group (which could be your group of friends from school, college, team, etc.) get together, cook or order some food and enjoy the evening together, telling jokes, anecdotes from the time they’ve shared, and having fun. This gathering is called “peña”.
Our Argentinian teacher Javier is a “santafesino“, have you meet him? If not, book a class with him and learn more about this friendly city.