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Approaching from the north, you can appreciate the mountain backdrop of the holiday capital of Argentinian Patagonia, BARILOCHE , or San Carlos de Bariloche, to give it its full title, spread along the dry southeastern shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi. It banks up against the slopes of Cerro Otto, behind which rear the spiky crests of the Cerro Catedral massif, but this view is obscured the closer you get to town. Everything in town faces the lake, Northern Patagonia's heavyweight: an impressive expanse of water that can seem like a benign Mediterranean one moment and a froth of seething whitecaps the next, lashed by the icy winds that sometimes whip off it into town.

The town's life-blood is tourism, with 700,000 visitors arriving annually, most of whom are Argentinian. As well as families, this is a place of pilgrimage for the nation's students, who flood here in January and February. They don't necessarily come in search of the mountain experience, but often end up having one, pushed out of town by the inflated high-season prices of hotels and clubs. The area's main attraction is a large one: the Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi that surrounds town, although in winter, it's specifically the ski-resort of Cerro Catedral nearby - one of the country's most important. For five days in August, Bariloche celebrates the Fiesta Nacional de la Nieve , with ski races, parades and a torchlit evening descent on skis to open the season officially, as well as the election of the Reina Nacional de la Nieve, or Snow Queen.

At peak times of year, you may find that the excesses of commercialization and crowds of tourists will spoil elements of your visit. Nevertheless, the place does work well in giving remarkably painless access to many beautiful, and some genuinely wild, areas of the cordillera and, out of season, the town is still big enough to retain some life