Colonia de Sacremento.

The last stop on our brief Uruguayan excursion was Colonia de Sacramento. This is a UNESCO world heritage site on the banks of the Rio Plata which was originally set up by the Portuguese to smuggle things into Buenos Aires. It's main function has changed a bit since then but people still flood across from buenos aires on a regular basis with Several ferries a day crossing the river.


Colonia is now more of a holiday location with many people from Montevideo and Buenos Aires owning the beautiful river front properties. The other reason the Argentinians were apparently flocking there was because in Uruguay you can withdraw dollars, which is now impossible across the river (driving the exchange rate sky high) the downside being that the queues at the cash points are usually long and people tend to spend at least 10 minutes in the booth (we waited an hour in a queue of 5 people!). At the time this seemed pretty crazy but for reasons I will cover in my next blog it now makes sense.




Colonia itself is a beautiful city, the old town has quaint cobbled streets which are lined with (for the most part) well maintained original houses. Old cars litter the streets, in some cases these have been converted into impressive flower gardens!

The old town also has a number of beautiful squares which are filled with cafes and restaurants with abundant outdoor seating allowing you to sit and soak up the atmosphere. The coffee is usually good but make sure you check the price before ordering, at one place we were charged 150 Uruguay pesos (5 pounds) for a tiny cappuccino (that was the price listed on the menu we simply didn't look).

Food in a tourist town is always a tricky one. Similar to many such places menus and prices tend to be quite similar and because most of the trade is passing through judging a place by how many "locals" are there is a tricky game as usually they have as little idea as you do.

As I have mentioned before we tend to use fodors, trip advisor and the lonely planet to pick but even then choosing somewhere can tend to be a problem. We had one terrible meal at the faroria de pulpo and because we were seated outside eating several other people thought the place looked ok and ate there too (sorry to those people, hope you got better meals than our microwaved stuff).

We did however find one restaurant definitely worth visiting, this was in the old town and was called Marlo. Marlo is something of an up market Asado/Parillia restaurant. Rather than being the all you can eat variety this is a pick and pay grill (where you just pay for the bits you want) which is good if you have a small appetite or you are on a wedding diet! I would highly recommend the rib eye steak and the black pudding there. The steak was some of the best we've had on our trip an the black pudding was some of the best I have ever eaten (growing up in the midlands on a farm I have eaten quite a lot of it). We managed to have two good meals there for around 600 pesos (20 pounds) although the more food you order the more you pay.

The old town really is one of the most photogenic areas we've been to and I would definitely recommend a weekend trip across the river from Buenos Aires if you have the time (even if you don't need to stock up on dollars).

Pictures are the grill from Marlo, an old car in the old town, one of the squares in the old town and a shot of the old town from the lighthouse.