El Calafate, Argentina

EL CALAFATE is the base for seeing Glaciar Perito Moreno and the other world-class attractions that occupy the southern sector of Parque National Los Glaciares and, as such, is one of the country's most-visited tourist destinations. These attractions cluster around Lago Argentino, the largest of all exclusively Argentine lakes, and the third biggest in all South America, with a surface area of 1600 square kilometres – it's so deep that its temperature remains almost constant at 8°C year round. Catch it on a cloudy day and you could be looking at a tarnished expanse of molten lead, while when the weather is brighter the lake soaks up the light of the Patagonian sky to reflect a glorious hue of polarized blue. Most of Lago Argentino is surrounded by harsh, rolling steppe, but the scenery becomes more interesting around its western tendrils: transitional scrub and southern beech woodland press up on its shores, and the snow-capped mountains that fringe the Hielo Continental Sur rear up behind.