🇦🇷 Argentina · Córdoba
Nono is a small, peaceful village in the Traslasierra Valley, in the west of Córdoba province, a few kilometers from Mina Clavero. Surrounded by clear sierra rivers, groves and a landscape of gentle hills, it's one of those quiet destinations that win over anyone after rest, nature and a country rhythm, far from the bustle of the busier tourist centers.
Its name, of indigenous root, and its serene atmosphere have made it a place chosen by artists, artisans and travelers who value calm. The village is also famous for a singular, one-of-a-kind attraction: the Museo Polifacético Rocsen, one of the most curious and vast private collections in Argentina, with thousands upon thousands of objects from every corner of the world.
This guide covers Nono with a practical eye: its swimming spots and rivers for cooling off in summer, the astonishing Rocsen Museum, its quiet sierra-flavored center, its ideal position as a Traslasierra base alongside Mina Clavero and Villa Cura Brochero, and the useful details for getting there, sleeping, eating and getting around this corner of the valley.
Nono is an old Traslasierra settlement whose name, of indigenous (Comechingón) origin, is usually associated with a word meaning 'breasts', in reference to the shapes of the nearby hills. With a rural, livestock-raising past, it gradually gained fame as a destination for rest and nature, and it is famous for the Museo Polifacético Rocsen, founded by the Frenchman Juan Santiago Bouchon. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The landlocked province of sierras and rivers: Comechingón land founded by Cabrera in 1573, seat of the oldest university in the country and of the great Jesuit legacy, cradle of the University Reform and of the Cordobazo, capital of sierra tourism and of cuarteto.
Read the history of Córdoba →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Why did a village of barely a few blocks end up named, according to oral tradition, after a part of the human body? The Traslasierra Valley, where Nono sits, was inhabited long before the Spanish arrived by the Comechingón peoples (and the Sanavirones in other parts of Córdoba), farmers and herders who lived in semi-sunken villages, grew maize, squash and beans, and used the rivers and hillsides to graze llamas and to hunt. The Comechingones developed a material culture of their own, with pottery, rock paintings in the region's rock shelters and a deep knowledge of the sierra territory that archaeologists are still studying today. The place names of the valley still preserve many words of indigenous root, and the name Nono is one of them. The most widespread reading links it to a word meaning something like 'breasts', in reference to the rounded shape of the nearby hills that stand out behind the village, though there are other versions of its origin that linguists still debate, given how little documentation survives of the Comechingón language, now extinct.
After the Spanish conquest and colonization, the region was organized around estancias, chapels and small rural settlements, in a process that displaced and assimilated the native population through the 17th and 18th centuries. Traslasierra — literally 'behind the sierra', the name given to it by the people of the city of Córdoba, looking at the valley from the other side of the mountain range — was an area cut off from the city of Córdoba by the imposing massif of the Sierras Grandes, which for centuries gave it an isolated character and a strong identity of its own, distinct from the Punilla valley or the Córdoba plains. The economy revolved around extensive livestock raising, subsistence farming on the valley floors watered by the sierra rivers and, later, some small-scale mining and forestry.
Nono was one of those old valley settlements, tied to rural life and to the local parish district, which depended ecclesiastically on larger parishes such as Mina Clavero or San Javier. Its development, like that of all Traslasierra, was marked by remoteness and by dependence on difficult mountain roads — often passable only on horseback or by cart — until improvements in communications in the 20th century, and above all the arrival of the car and better roads, began to integrate it more with the rest of the province.
If one thing changed Nono's profile and put it on the country's tourist map, it was the creation of the Museo Polifacético Rocsen. Its founder, Juan Santiago Bouchon, was born in Nice, France, on July 3, 1928, studied anthropology and fine arts in Paris, came to Argentina in 1950 and in 1959 settled in Nono, where for decades he pursued the dream of the total collector. On January 6, 1969 he opened the museum's doors with barely 100 square meters of display space; half a century later, the building never stopped growing and its inventory exceeds 65,000 pieces on display, with thousands more in storage waiting for room.
Driven by a universal curiosity and by the idea that 'everything is related to everything', Bouchon gathered objects from every period, culture and discipline: fossils, minerals and mummies, vintage cars, musical instruments, weapons, machines, sacred art, ethnographic pieces and countless curiosities, in a route that mixes science, history, art and technology in encyclopedic fashion. The facade, crowned by dozens of statues of great figures of humanity, became one of the most recognizable images of Traslasierra. Bouchon died in Nono in February 2019, aged 90, but the museum carried on in the hands of the non-profit foundation he himself created, the Fundación M. Rocsen, with his family at the helm.
Thanks to Rocsen and to its natural setting, Nono gained fame as a destination for people seeking both cultural wonder and sierra calm. The museum drew visitors from all over the country and from abroad, and established the village as an obligatory stop in the valley, adding an unexpected cultural dimension to its profile of rest and nature.
Through the 20th century and up to the present, Nono took shape as a destination of rest, nature and quiet living within an increasingly visited Traslasierra Valley. While neighboring Mina Clavero grew into a major tourist center, Nono kept a more serene, simple character, which drew artists, artisans and travelers after an unhurried pace and contact with nature, in some cases with a back-to-nature, bohemian streak.
Its rivers and streams of crystalline water, its sierra swimming spots and its groves became the main natural draw, especially in summer, when the cool water from the hills is a relief from the heat. The village developed an offer of cabins, inns, campsites and places to eat that respect that spirit of calm, without the crowds of other centers in the valley.
Today Nono combines three dimensions that make it special: its rural and indigenous origins, reflected in its name and in the culture of the valley; its surprising cultural side thanks to the Rocsen Museum; and its vocation as a quiet refuge of rivers and hills. That mix, along with its closeness to Mina Clavero and Villa Cura Brochero, keeps it one of the best-loved corners of Traslasierra for anyone after genuine rest.
Nono's history can't be understood apart from that of the Traslasierra Valley as a whole, a region that for centuries lived cut off from the rest of Córdoba by the barrier of the Sierras Grandes. That remoteness shaped its identity and also held it back: the roads were difficult and contact with the provincial capital was scarce. The key figure in the valley's transformation was the priest José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero, the 'Gaucho Priest', who in the late 19th century rode the area on muleback pushing for roads, schools, chapels and public works. Brochero, canonized as a saint in 2016, gave his name to neighboring Villa Cura Brochero and became a symbol of the valley.
The opening of better roads — and, much later, of the Ruta de las Altas Cumbres, which links Traslasierra with the Punilla valley across the peaks — finally integrated the region into the provincial and national circuit. Over the 20th century, the dry, sunny climate, the reputation for clean air and sierra waters, and the beauty of the rivers turned Traslasierra into a sought-after destination for rest and health.
Nono joined that current while keeping its more intimate, quiet profile against the tourist growth of Mina Clavero. The consolidation of the Rocsen Museum, the development of swimming spots and the offer of cabins and guesthouses made the village an established but serene destination, faithful to its character as a sierra refuge, which is precisely what sets it apart within the valley today.