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Museo Evita, Lafinur, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Inside a grand Palermo mansion, the Museo Evita details the life of Argentina’s former first lady, albeit through a rose-colored filter, and is a must for anyone looking to better understand why Argentina continues to cry for her. Ignoring many of the controversies surrounding her and her husband’s years in power (of which there are many), it instead highlights her impressive accomplishments (of which there are also many). On two floors, galleries feature photographs, speech recordings and personal artifacts (including her iconic fashions), most of which will be new to even the most ardent of Evita fans. Placards are in English and Spanish, though the ones in Spanish are significantly more detailed.
Visitors leave the museum with a profound sense of admiration for its polarizing subject, who, in her tragically short life, fiercely championed the rights of women, children, the impoverished and ill while navigating the power circles of a famously machismo society. (Even the building itself is evidence: Evita’s charitable foundation seized the mansion from a wealthy porteño family and transformed into a women’s shelter in 1948.)
Written by Peter Schlesinger