After 3 weeks of immersion Spanish we are testing the waters with our first South American country since retirement: Uruguay (spoiler alert at least one of us needs more than 3 weeks). We arrived in Montevideo at 9pm on Monday after a very smooth flight and spent a very comfortable night at Hotel Montevideo.
Tuesday morning Rosa (guide #1) picked us up and drove us to Colonia del Sacramento. Along the way we stopped at Bodega del Quintón where we had a tour of the olive groves and vineyards followed by tours of both the olive processing plant and the winery with a lovely snack of empanadas, salumi and cheeses.
In Colonia del Sacramento we stayed at Charco Hotel in the old city, which was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1995. After walking around the old city and along the waterfront we sat by the river until dinner. Filip tried a classic Chivito for dinner (it was as heavy as it sounds).
 |
| Filip in front of Rio de la Plata at Charco Hotel |
We started Wednesday with a walking tour led by Frederico (guide #2), where we saw the 4 main sites of the old city: the drawbridge into the city, the oldest church in all of Uruguay, the street of sighs (bordellos not prison), and the lighthouse as well as a couple of small museums. Colonia was initially founded by the Portuguese but was ruled periodically by both the Spanish and the Portuguese resulting a unique blend of both cultures. Colonia is also a common day trip for tourists visiting Buenos Aires with a ferry that runs between the two cities multiple times a day. In fact many people we met were surprised to learn that we were not visiting from Buenos Aires.
 |
On the drawbridge into the old city
|
 |
| Micki in front of the lighthouse |
 |
| Tunnel of water under the town theater to improve the acoustics |
 |
| The streets in Colonia had many old cars. This one needed a Filicki sticker |
On Thursday we drove to Carmelo where we had a tour of the oldest winery in Uruguay, Los Cerros de San Juan. Along the way, we had a matte tasting - which is not our "cup of tea". The tour was in Spanish, but Frederico kindly translated for us. Interestingly, until recently, the winery had been neglected and not a big tourist attraction. However now the property has been restored while maintaining the original heritage and was a lovely place to visit.
 |
| Gas pumps outside of the winery |
 |
Some wine from Los Cerros was fermented in amphoras
Showing off his strength |
 |
| Playing in the wine cellar |
After lunch, Frederico dropped us at Narbona Wine Lodge, a boutique hotel outside of Carmelo, and our home for the next 3 nights where we had a spacious room with a view of the vineyards. While at Narbona we spent several hours by the pool, took a sunset boat ride, and a had a couple of very boutiquey/bespoke winery tours (Laura #3).
 |
| Sunset cruise (with Buenos Aires behind us) |
View from our room at Narbona
 |
| Our last tasting at El Legato winery was from the barrel. |
Our next stop was in Montevideo and Black Tomato had a planned a special dinner for us the first night at the home of the bodega owner of Los Nadies, Manuel Filgueira. Manuel kept us entertained with his life stories all evening, including his tales of only selling Los Nadies wines to Michelin star restaurants in Japan.
The next day we had a city tour with the Nics concluding with a lunch at a restaurant in the Port Market (with Rosa #1). Our city tour included two museum stops - the first of Joaquin Torres-García who is famous for his grid-like art of mostly squares and rectangles in red, black, white and yellow. It was a small museum with interesting art as well as special exhibition of colorful clothes.
 |
| Filip fitting in with the colorful clothes |
 |
In Plaza de la Diversidad Sexual
|
The second museum we went to was José Gurvich, who was a student of Torres-García.
 |
Many of Gurvich's pieces were 3 dimensional, but captured the shapes of Torres-García
|
 |
| Sitting in the market before lunch |
After being dropped back at our hotel we walked along the riverfront to the Montevideo sign and headed over to he-Nic's abuela's home for a dinner with his family.
 |
He-Nic fixing our Uruguayan barbecue at his abuela's
|
Our next day began with tour of the vineyards at Bouza- one of the larger wineries in Uruguay. We were fortunate because it was crowded but there were very few English speaking patrons so we had a private tour.
 |
Our tour guide showing us the Albariño grapevines (it was really hot)
|
In the evening, the Nic's went back to his grandmother's and we had a light dinner on the rooftop of Hotel Montevideo.
Our next stop in Uruguay was at Punta del Este, which ironically is not the Eastern-most point of the country, but the Southern-most point and where the Atlantic ocean and the Río de la Plata converge. Punte del Este had a Miami-Beach feel with the large condominium buildings (including a Trump Tower) and caro cars, but also some quiet, peaceful neighborhoods off the main street. In Punte del Este we enjoyed some long walks along the ocean, and nice dinners at La Bourgogne and Floreal (both of which we would recommend), as well as really pleasant afternoon at Nicole's favorite hangout - Los Dedos Point.
 |
| Fortunately most people in Uruguay sleep late so we had La Mano almost to ourselves |
 |
| Dinner at La Bourgogne |
 |
| At Los Dedos Point |
We told Black Tomato (who planned our trip) that we wanted to spend New Years Eve somewhere quiet- away from people and fireworks. The certainly delivered on that request. Our next stop was at Sacromonte - a unique vineyard/olive orchard with 4 stand-alone glass box rooms.
 |
| Our hut in the middle of the vineyard |
Many families of capybara live at Sacromonte
Our activities on the 29th included a tour of an olive grove, Olivo de las Ánimas and a vineyard (guide #4).
Martin, the owner of the olive grove, taught us how to make olive oil and took us on a tractor ride through the grove to his home where we tasted the olive oil and ate lunch.
 |
| Filip with Martin getting ready to taste some olive oil from the tank |
 |
| Tractor ride through the orchard |
 |
| A baby armadillo made a surprise appearance |
 |
| Three olive oils we tasted |
 |
Some rhea joined our lunch
|
After thanking Martin and his wife we made our way to our final winery: Bodega Altos de la Ballena located in the rocky outcrops of Punta Ballena. We sampled 4 of their wines: a white, rose and 2 reds - we thought the white was the best. As we were not very hungry we enjoyed sharing our charcuterie with the 2 hounds that were hanging with us.
 |
Final wine tasting
View from rocks at Bodega Altos de la Ballena to Laguna del Sauce |
We had 2 quiet days to explore Sacromonte and bring in the new year. The property is quite vast and beautiful. We did some hiking and enjoyed sitting outside our hut in the shade as well as taking in the views and food from their small restaurant.
 |
Hike by the old quarry at Sacromonte
|
Our final stop was in Jose Ignacio, a small beach town east of Punte de Este at a ranch hotel called Estancia Vik. We had a lovely room with a wrap around balcony and we spent most of our time there. The Nics joined us for our last night there and it was lovely to have one extra day with them.
 |
| View of the horses, river and vast landscape from our balcony |
 |
| The 6 places we stayed in Uruguay |
Comments
Post a Comment