Private Artisans Tour Buenos Aires: Fileteado & Silversmith

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.50 (2 reviews)

Free cancellation

1/6

Duration3h

GroupPrivate

LanguagesEN · DE +5

PickupAt your hotel

Learn fileteado painting from the artist who does it, then walk where Buenos Aires keeps its 200-year craft tradition alive

A private artisans and makers tour in Buenos Aires where you visit working studios in San Telmo and La Boca, learn fileteado (the hand-painted decorative art on Argentine buses and signs) directly from artist Miguel Ángel Polizzi, and meet a silversmith whose work has reached the Vatican. The tour runs three hours with hotel pickup and an English-speaking guide; you'll take home a fileteado piece you paint yourself in the workshop.

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore Buenos Aires artisans and culture

Visit fileteador Miguel Ángel Polizzi's workshop
Take basic fileteado art class
See Mafalda cartoon character artwork
Visit Dulce de Leche specialty store
View the narrowest house in Buenos Aires
Pass by Pizzeria Pirilo
Explore San Telmo market
Walk through Plaza Dorrego flea market
End with coffee at La Pulpería Quilapán

The Experience

The tour starts at Miguel Ángel Polizzi's workshop in San Telmo, where the fileteador and his assistant walk you through the history and technique of fileteado—the distinctly Argentine art form that has decorated everything from colectivo buses to shop signs for two centuries. You get a hands-on introduction and paint your own fileteado work to keep, so you leave with something you made, not just saw.

From there the route moves through the neighborhoods where this craft lives. You'll pass the narrowest house in the city (2.50 meters wide, built in the 1820s for freed slaves), stop at Plaza Dorrego where the San Telmo Fair runs on Sundays with antique stalls and street artists, and walk through the San Telmo market where vendors sell handicrafts, records and old toys alongside spices and everyday goods. The silversmith visit shows you why Argentine artisans have clients as far as the Vatican—the precision and tradition behind work most travelers never know exists.

The drive loops through Recoleta, Retiro and Puerto Madero so you see the neighborhoods without stopping at each one. The tour ends at La Pulpería Quilapán, a restored historic house that mixes Argentine folklore with Buenos Aires architecture, where you sit down with coffee, homemade bread, jam and sweet milk. An air-conditioned vehicle and professional guide (in English or Spanish) handle the logistics, and the driver picks you up and drops you at your hotel.

What’s included

Air-conditioned vehicle.
professional guide.
hotel pickup and drop-off.
fileteado painting class where you create and take home your own work.
visits to the silversmith studio and San Telmo artisan workshops.
coffee, homemade bread, jam and sweet milk at the end.

Good to know

Easy physical level

Operated by Signature Tours

Is this one for you?Three hours is short enough to fit artisan visits and a neighborhood walk into a single morning or afternoon without eating the rest of your day, but long enough that you're not rushing through the workshops or the market. If you want to see where Buenos Aires' craft traditions actually live—not a museum version of them—rather than hit a checklist of famous plazas, this tour trades the breadth of a bigger city tour for depth in one neighborhood and real makers.