There is a rumor going around that Buenos Aires either is, or is about to become, the new Prague. By this its boosters mean a city that is rapidly being discovered by a certain segment of the world’s young, and not only those backpacking youth interested in finding love and adventure in a context of faded, old world opulence.

Well, nothing is quite like Prague, and similarly nothing is quite like Buenos Aires. But there are points of useful similarity between the two cities. Just as Prague was reborn after being brutalized for almost half a century by communist occupation, so the entire economy of Argentina collapsed in late 2001, after an inflation of nearly five years — a fall so devastating it has been compared to the Great Depression.

After coming out on the other side of their respective cataclysms, both cities, giddy with a sense of liberation, have burst into life as centers of culture and commerce. Moreover, just as Prague was delightfully cheap 15 years ago, so now Buenos Aires is consistently ranked as one of the least expensive cities in the world.

The reason for this — as millions of tourists have come to realize — is that the country’s currency was reduced to a third of its value on the international market. This means that while a peso feels like a dollar to the locals, to us it feels like 33 cents. It also means that all else being equal, everything there costs about a third of what it costs here — from hotels and night clubs to filet mignon, a beer, or a box of chocolates. To put it another way, Americans, who have seen the almighty dollar lose almost 20% of its value against the euro in recent years, will rediscover in Buenos Aires how it must have felt to lay down a greenback in the early 1960s.

That, of course, is not the only archaism that tourists will encounter in Buenos Aires. A city like New York is so relentless in its constant reinvention that it can be difficult to find a store or restaurant or anything else that is more than a few years old, or that retains the look it had a few years back. In Buenos Aires, by contrast, there is an abundance of old buildings, done up in the Beaux-Arts style that, more than anything else, has earned this metropolis of 12 million souls the right to be called the Paris of South America. Among its tourist attractions is the Recoleta, an old cemetery that figures prominently in the works of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges; the Casa Rosada on the Plaza de Mayo, from whose balconies Eva Perón greeted an adoring public, and the newly renovated Puerto Madero, once the center of the city’s commerce.

Perhaps more important, many of the shops, and especially the restaurants, preserve that earnest, wholesome décor that is particular to the American Midwest but has largely ceased to exist in New York’s five boroughs. There is also a distinct if residual machismo in Buenos Aires, a robust embrace of life that exists despite the city’s famously having a higher percentage of psychoanalysts per capita than any other in the world.

The food is a further confirmation of this fact. Sure, there are some attempts at nouvelle cuisine. But they rarely succeed, and the wise tourist will stick to the meatand-potatoes variety of cooking. The cuisine of Argentina, essentially a reworking of Madrid cuisine with a few Italian influences, emphasizes flavor over invention, as opposed to the far more exotic cuisine of Mexico.

One of my favorite restaurants, Munich (at 1871 Junin), is in theory, German, with its rows of mounted deer heads. But it is precisely in its efforts to seem international that it is essentially typical of Buenos Aires. Rumored to have been a favorite of Borges, it offers some of the best beef in the city. Be warned, however, that the price for filet mignon is steep: $10!

To be fair, Buenos Aires is hardly wedged in the past. Indeed, the upheavals of recent years have resulted in considerable cultural activity in the fields of dance, design, and the fine arts. A new museum, the Museo de Artes Latino-Americanas de Buenos Aires, opened only a few years ago. It is housed in a stunning new building, which features vibrant contemporary and Modern Art, just as the Museo de Bellas Artes features Old Masters and Impressionists.

Hotels in Buenos Aires range from the modest to the super luxurious, including the fabled Alvear Palace Hotel (at Av Alvear 1891), which, even in the depths of the devaluation, still managed to be a prohibitively expensive five-star hotel. Especially charming is the new Sofitel (at 33 Arroyo), which also has a fine restaurant. Most hotels, however, are more modest in price and rooms are in the range of $35 a night for something comfortable.

If you seek evidence of the revival of Argentina’s fortunes, you will find it, unfortunately, in the airfares. Only a few years ago, a round-trip ticket could be had for as little as $500. Today it has doubled, whether you take the national carrier, Aerolineas Argentinas, American Airlines, or any other company.

jgardner@nysun.com