Today we decided to explore Montevideo.
We spent 4 nights here and explored other cities, so very important we see what they have to offer here. It was very nice. From the hotel, we walked half a block and took a bus directly to the old part of the city. We arrived around 9:30am and found an information place. They gave us a detailed map of the old town and made recommendations of where to walk. We discovered that most of the businesses do not open until 10pm in this area.
Shortly after leaving the tourist place, a gentlemen greeted us and asked where we were from. We had a short conversation with him before moving on. One thing that we noticed is that when you are greeted by a stranger in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay (don’t know about the other countries yet), they are not trying to sell you something, they are legitimately wanting to know where you are from. To this day, we have met many people and had small conversations with, just friendly and respectful … such a treat … an important quality of the people here that I hope is never lost.
We visited a few unique architectural structures that were interesting to see.
We visited some monuments and fountains in the area as well.
We also visited a Church where we heard an acoustical sound of singing that traveled throughout the Church and certainly added to the character of this old structure.
Early afternoon we had seen all that we thought was in the area worth visiting and headed to the bus stop. When we got to the bus, it started to rain lightly. We returned to the hotel and after about an hour, saw the sun was out again so explored this area of Montevideo. We went to Playa Pocitos, a very well known beach, in Montevideo and was only a few blocks from our hotel.
At the far end of this beach they had a sign of Montevideo so we hiked there to take a few photo’s. We got to playing a little bit with photo's and Charlie did a photo merge to include both of us sitting on a bench. A very cool technique to make it look like we were both sitting on the bench at the same time ... but we were not. LOL
After hiking the beach we made our way around the point. We saw a “castle” built of bricks that was wedged between two bigger buildings.
This was quite unique as the building seemed to be leaning against one of the tall buildings. This “castle” was actually a theatre. We headed back to our hotel to drop off our cameras and to get a bite to eat.
As per a request from a lovely friend of mine, it would be helpful if I included some maps to show where we had been. A little late, but better than never, below is a map of part of Uruguay and I have pinned the three communities that we visited (Maldonado/Punta del Este; Montevideo; and Colonia del Sacramento.
We were in Uruguay for 4 days and we ask ourselves, "Where did the time go?!" The people are so friendly here in Uruguay, we wished we had some more time.
Off tomorrow to Argentina.