The silence that rests over the urban area of Castilla -in the party of Chacabuco- outlines the typical calm atmosphere that fits every rural town of the humid pampas.
But something else seems to beat here: the superb century-old construction of the train station and the sequence of elegant brick houses that refer to a bygone time reveal the brightness of a much more lively past, when the trills of the birds were extinguished at the expense of the murmur of workers and factories.
History and taste
The presumption of the remnants of that time of splendor becomes certainty in the voice of Mariano Morra, fully dedicated to honor his reputation as an excellent steakhouse to the stake and owner of the country restaurant El Stud.
Castilla Station of the San Martín Railway.
"Between the decades of the '30s and the '60s, more than forty dairy farms operated in the rural area, which supplied two cheese factories and a dulce de leche factory. About 500 milk carts gathered to unload the merchandise they brought from the field. There was also a refrigerator, which employed more than a hundred people, until it closed in 1983."
Without having to look up from the piglet to the spit, Morra rescues those loose pieces still fixed in popular memory, while his wife Noelia Ontiveros enlivens the talk with a chopped cheese and regional cold cuts, as a palpable sign that, beyond the crises that reduced the sources of work to their minimum expression, The best local traditions are preserved as the most valuable treasure.
The commitment to offer visitors a complete repertoire of regional flavors in El Stud took off in December 2021 and shook the calm pace of the entire town, which now glimpses in rural tourism the possibility of a future that no longer contemplates the probability of exodus.
Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, in front of the Plaza Héroes del Crucero General Belgrano, in Castile.
The imprint of Noelia Ontiveros -an outstanding student at the Agrotechnical School of Mercedes, who also studied Rural Administration in Chivilcoy- is noticeable at every moment of the country day.
From the personalized attention it provides to diners eager for the asado, empanadas, stew and chorizo a la pomarola to the guided tour, which includes the quinta, the chicken coop and the children's walk, mounted in unorthodox ways on the back of the Yito petiso.
The leading figure of the housewife seems to be completed with the appearance on stage of another essential piece: her mother Marta Gómez, determined to dump on the palates much of her experience of thirty years as a cook in the estancia La Negra, another pillar of that splendid Castile, blurred by abandonment and the irrepressible passage of time.
Old brick houses in Castile, in the district of Chacabuco.
There is no recipe that escapes the virtuous hands of the chef, but its best versions -assure the most demanding customers who frequent El Stud- are strawberry cake, tiramisu, homemade flan and lemon pie.
Squares, sunset and craft beer
An autumn breeze raises a slight dust through the dirt streets, emerged as almost impassable paths since the arrival in the area of the landowner Manuel Castilla in 1957.
Camping and country house La Capilla, in Castile.
The town began to reveal its definitive trace in the late nineteenth century, around the station of the Buenos Aires Steam Railway to the Pacific and the first chapel, two foundational works built on land donated by Irish immigrants Tomás Keating and Miguel Allen.
The imprint of these pioneers revives in the neat design of the San Martín and Héroes squares of the General Belgrano Cruise, rest scales for lovers of bicycle tourism who pedal without any hurry to get carried away by the suggestive charm of Castilla, Rivas and Rawson.
Others, perhaps warned by some attentive advance, choose to wait for the sunset, facing the wide horizon of sown fields, from the privileged perspective of the La Capilla campsite.
Mariano Morra, steakhouse and owner of the country restaurant El Stud, in Castilla.
"To enjoy this show in the best way, we propose to nuance the wait with a pork ribs with malbec with potatoes au gratin, wood-fired pizza or chicken from the field to disc", summarizes the best of the menu the blacksmith and electrician Nicolás Luna, decidedly launched into his new role as chef and host of tourists.
The innovative wind that rose over Castilla after the hard challenge of the pandemic also reached Marta Mansilla, who converted her door-to-door bakery sales venture into the most ambitious "one hundred percent homemade" dining room Arte Sano.
In front of one of the vertices dyed intense green of the Plaza San Martín, Mansilla and her husband Carlos Mazzetti win the favor of visitors with their best arguments: craft beer, pizzas, the hamburger of the house and the colossal Artenesa, a name with resonances of a work of art, which, in reality, refers to a Neapolitan Milanese with egg and fries with the flavor of Castile, a strange soft and intense mixture that summons to be discovered.
One of the squares of Castile.
Mini-guide
How to get there. From the city of Buenos Aires to Castilla are 173 kilometers by West Access to Luján, route 7 to Carmen de Areco and route 51. Option: West Access, Route 5 to Suipacha, Route 43 to Rivas and Route 42 (16 km of land in very good condition).
Train San Martín de Retiro to Castilla (3 hs. 30'), $ 860 one-way in Primera and $ 1.015 in Pullman; from 3 to 12 years, 50%.
Bus Pullman General Belgrano or Condor Estrella de Retiro to Carmen de Areco (3 hours), $ 2,600 one way in semicama and $ 3,700 in executive bed; from there to Castile, Remís Ezequiel (02273- 414876).
Combi Chivilcoy from Alto Palermo to Suipacha, $ 2,800 one way (02346- 423-710/433-304); from there to Castilla, remís Suipacha (02324- 481-092) or taxi San Lorenzo (02324- 481-405).
Sunset at La Capilla campsite, in Castilla.
Where to stay. In Castile, camping La Capilla: $ 1,500 per night in tent per person; spend the day, $750; tent rental for two, $2,500; foam rubber mattress, $ 350 (155- 8567591 / Facebook: Casa de campo La Capilla - Castilla).
In Carmen de Areco, Carmen de Areco hotel: double room with breakfast, garage, cable TV and wi-fi, $ 11,500; triple, $15,450; during the week, $ 8,500 double and $ 10,700 triple (02273- 443-533 / 442-543 / 02273- 15438400 / hotelcarmendeareco@hotmail.com / www.hotelcarmendeareco.com.ar / Facebook: Hotel Carmen de Areco).
In Suipacha, hotel La Casona del Pueblo: double room with breakfast, cable TV, wi-fi and parking, $ 10,000 (02324- 481-574 / Facebook: La Casona de Suipacha).
The Villa Gerónima house, from 1914, one of the oldest buildings in Castile.
How much does it cost. Entrees, empanada, barbecue and dessert at El Stud country restaurant, $4,000; from 5 to 13 years, $ 2,000 (02324- 15473214 / (02352) 15529215 / elstud_@outlook.com / www.el-stud-restaurante-de-campo.negocio.site).
Where to find out. (02352) 470-352 / turismo@chacabuco.gob.ar / www.chacabuco.gob.ar / Facebook: Government of Chacabuco.
Rural tourism in Castilla, Chacabuco district.
See also
