🇦🇷 Argentina · Patagonia
Set among mountains and lakes, on the shore of the huge Nahuel Huapi and inside Argentina's oldest national park, San Carlos de Bariloche is the undisputed capital of Patagonian tourism. They call it the 'Argentine Switzerland' for its forests, its alpine-inspired stone and timber architecture and, of course, its chocolate tradition. It's a year-round destination: in winter it dresses in snow for skiing at Cerro Catedral, and in summer it bursts into green for trekking, boating and lake beaches.
The heart of the city is the Centro Cívico, a group of stone and log buildings facing the lake that became the Bariloche postcard, and Mitre street, where the legendary chocolate shops are clustered. From there, everything invites you out to the mountains: the Circuito Chico skirting the lake between hills and forest, the Cerro Campanario viewpoint (rated among the best views in the world), the iconic Hotel Llao Llao and the peninsula of the same name, and the piers for sailing to Isla Victoria and the arrayán forest.
But Bariloche is much more than its downtown. It's world-class skiing at Cerro Catedral, it's the revolving café on Cerro Otto, it's the picturesque hamlet of Colonia Suiza with its Patagonian curanto, it's the craft breweries and the spit-roasted lamb, and it's the roads that lead to Cerro Tronador, to Puerto Blest and to the Valdivian rainforest. Imposing nature, a history of European pioneers and a mature tourist infrastructure: there's a reason Bariloche is, for many, the best gateway to Patagonia.
Long before the city, the Nahuel Huapi region was inhabited by Indigenous peoples: Tehuelche, Puelche, Poya, Pehuenche and, later, Mapuche communities who gave the lake its name ('Nahuel Huapi' means, in Mapudungun, something like 'island of the tiger' or 'island of the jaguar'). In the 17th century Jesuit missionaries arrived and founded short-lived missions in the area. That Indigenous presence was brutally interrupted at the end of the 19th century with the Conquest of the Desert: in April 1881 Argentine troops reached Nahuel Huapi, incorporating the territory into the national state. Around 1895 the German-born trader Carlos Wiederhold set up a general store on the lakeshore, 'La Alemana', which became the seed of the settlement. On 3 May 1902 the founding of the town of San Carlos de Bariloche was officially recognized, mixing Wiederhold's name ('San Carlos') with the place name 'Vuriloche' (an Andean pass). In the early 20th century Swiss, German, Austrian and Italian immigrants arrived and settled the area, founded Colonia Suiza and brought fruit growing, ranching, woodworking, chocolate and an alpine architecture that shaped the identity of the place. The great leap came with the state: in 1934 Nahuel Huapi National Park was created (on the basis of the land donation the explorer Francisco P. Moreno had made in 1903) and the National Parks Directorate, chaired by Exequiel Bustillo, took on an enormous infrastructure program. That same year the railway arrived, ending the isolation, and in 1940 the Centro Cívico was inaugurated. With skiing at Cerro Catedral and pioneering figures such as Otto Meiling, Bariloche established itself as a first-rank tourist destination. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The province that crosses Patagonia from the cordillera to the sea: Tehuelche and Mapuche land, land of Carmen de Patagones and the Conquest of the Desert, of the apples of the Alto Valle, of Bariloche and the Nahuel Huapi, and of the beaches of Las Grutas.
Read the history of Río Negro →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before the chocolates of Mitre street and the runs of Cerro Catedral, Nahuel Huapi was for more than 10,000 years the territory of canoe peoples who crossed the lake and the Andes along routes no one remembers today. After the last glacial period, different groups — Tehuelche, Puelche, Poya, Pehuenche and, later, communities of Mapuche culture — moved through these forests, lakes and mountain valleys, living off hunting, fishing, gathering and, in the more suitable spots, crops such as potatoes, broad beans and quinoa. The lake, its islands and the mountain passes were natural routes of movement and exchange between the two sides of the Andes.
From the Mapuche people comes the region's most famous name: 'Nahuel Huapi', a Mapudungun term usually translated as 'island of the tiger' or 'island of the jaguar' (from 'nahuel', tiger or American jaguar, and 'huapi', island). Originally many of these communities traveled by canoe along the waterways; they only took up the horse — brought by the Europeans — on a large scale well into the colonial period, which transformed their mobility and their economy.
In the 17th century, Jesuit missionaries tried to establish missions on the lakeshore to evangelize the peoples of the area, ventures that proved short-lived and ended up abandoned. Through much of the colonial era, the Nahuel Huapi region stayed outside the effective control of the crown and later of the Argentine state: it was Indigenous territory, remote and hard to reach, and it kept its autonomy until the end of the 19th century.
The region's fate changed drastically at the end of the 19th century with the Conquest of the Desert, the military campaign through which the Argentine state subdued and absorbed the Indigenous territories of the Pampas and Patagonia. As part of those operations, a brigade under Lieutenant Colonel Rufino Ortega reached the shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi in April 1881, carrying military and state presence into the heart of the Andes.
For the Indigenous peoples, that campaign meant tragedy: thousands of deaths, forced displacement, the loss of their territories and the shattering of their way of life. The memory of that founding violence coexists today with the tourist story of Bariloche, and it's an inescapable part of the region's history.
A key figure of those years was the explorer Francisco Pascasio Moreno, a naturalist and expert in the border disputes with Chile. Moreno traveled Patagonia, built ties with Indigenous societies and mapped the region. In recognition of his services, the state granted him land in the Nahuel Huapi area, and in 1903 he donated to the national state a tract of about three leagues around Puerto Blest, on condition that it be preserved as a public park for the enjoyment of future generations. That gesture would be the seed of Argentina's first national park.
With the territory now part of the state, the era of the pioneers began. Around 1895, the German-born trader Carlos Wiederhold — who had come up from southern Chile — set up a general store on the lakeshore known as 'La Alemana', which supplied settlers on both sides of the Andes and became the commercial nucleus around which the future town grew. Cross-border trade and transport across the lake were, in those early years, the engine of the fledgling community.
On 3 May 1902 the founding of the town of San Carlos de Bariloche was officially established, the date the city celebrates as its anniversary. The name combines two roots: 'San Carlos', linked to Carlos Wiederhold, and 'Bariloche', derived from 'Vuriloche', a term that named an old Andean pass used by Indigenous peoples and missionaries ('Vuriloche' is usually associated with 'people from the other side of the mountain').
In the first decades of the 20th century, the settlement grew with the arrival of European immigrants — Swiss, Germans, Austrians, Italians, along with criollos and Chileans — who took up ranching, fruit growing, woodworking, trades and commerce. This mixed population, bound together by a work ethic and shared isolation, is what forged the pioneering character of Bariloche and laid the foundations of its identity.
The imprint that today gets Bariloche called the 'Argentine Switzerland' took shape with the arrival of European immigrants in the early 20th century. Swiss, Germans and Austrians — many of them from mountain regions — found in these forests, lakes and peaks a familiar landscape, close to that of their homelands, and settled to work the land and practice their trades.
One symbol of that wave was the founding of Colonia Suiza, an agricultural settlement on what is today the Circuito Chico, populated by Swiss settlers and, in time, by Germans and Italians as well. There, fruit growing, ranching and the making of cheeses and preserves developed, along with customs that survive, such as the curanto — an ancestral dish cooked underground among hot stones — that is still prepared for visitors today.
This immigration left a deep mark on the local architecture, food and culture. The alpine-style timber and stone buildings, the tea houses, the Central European baking and, very especially, the chocolate tradition all have roots in these settlers. In the mid-20th century, Italian immigrants such as Aldo Fenoglio drove European-style chocolate production, giving rise to the chocolate fame of Mitre street that lasts to this day. From that crossing of origins came the 'European' mountain identity that sets Bariloche apart.
Bariloche's great leap, from isolated town to national tourist destination, came from the state in the 1930s. On the basis of the land donation Francisco P. Moreno had made in 1903 — which gave rise to the 'Parque Nacional del Sud' — a national law in 1934 created Nahuel Huapi National Park, the oldest in Argentina, along with the National Parks Directorate.
At the head of that Directorate, its first president, Exequiel Bustillo, drove an ambitious infrastructure program to develop the region and attract tourism. That same year, 1934, the railway finally arrived, ending the town's long isolation and connecting it regularly with the rest of the country. Roads, hotels, mountain refuges and piers transformed the territory. The most emblematic work was the Centro Cívico: designed by the architect Ernesto de Estrada and opened on 17 March 1940, this group of public buildings in stone and timber, in an alpine-Patagonian picturesque style laid out in a 'U' facing the lake, became the city's definitive postcard and was declared a National Historic Monument in 1987.
In parallel, pioneering figures in mountaineering and winter sport drove another of Bariloche's great callings: skiing. The German Otto Meiling, who arrived in 1930, founded schools and made the first skis; and the Parks Directorate of the time brought in specialists such as the Austrian Hans Nöbl to study the feasibility of a large ski resort, which ended up being built at Cerro Catedral. With all that, by the middle of the 20th century Bariloche was already 'the Argentine Switzerland': an established destination of mountains, lakes and snow, combining imposing nature, European heritage and a history of pioneers, and today the main gateway to tourism in the Andean Patagonia.