Experience the best of San Miguel de Tucumán

San Miguel de Tucumán sits on a plain at the foot of the Sierra de San Javier in Argentina's north-west. The Casa Histórica de la Independencia, with the hall where congress declared independence from Spain on 9 July 1816, is the city's best-known building. Around the Plaza Independencia stand the government house, the cathedral and the pedestrian streets of the centre.

Parque 9 de Julio is a large park laid out with lakes and avenues, and Cerro San Javier, topped by a tall statue of Christ, looks back over the city. Cloud forest, known as yungas, climbs the sierra, and the roads west lead to the high valley of Tafí del Valle and, further south, to the ruins of Quilmes.

Tucumán is proud of its empanadas, filled with hand-cut beef, onion and cumin, and also serves locro, humita and tamales. Sugar cane and lemons grow on the surrounding plain, where rain falls mostly in the hot months.