.....Hannis Blog.....: Uruguay

Dienstag, 22. Juni 2010

Uruguay

Colonia de Sacramento
As we had some time left, we did it like the Porteños and booked a little trip to Uruguay. Our ferry left for Colonia in the morning and reached the little seaport by midday. The old city center is deservedly a world heritage site - with its colonial buildings, the atmosphere of a small city surrounded by the sea. The first thing we did was to get a chivito, a uruguayan sandwich (a recommendation from our hostel in Buenos Aires) and afterwards walked to the mole to get some fresh sea air. Going further throught the small, very old and bumby streets we found lots of oldtimer - some standing there for pictures, some still in use and one with tables of a cafe inside :) Afterwards we climbed up the small lighthouse, enjoyed the remains of the walls and got ourselve a nice meal for dinner. All in all a very nice relaxing and romantic town.

Von Uruguay

Montevideo
The next day we went to Montevideo by bus. Walking through downtown Montevideo is almost like being in Spain (e.g. a lot of shoe stores :) But you can find the former highest building of Southamerica Palacio Salvo, the underground mausoleum of their national hero Artigas and the mercado del puerto with its fine meat there as well. It's not really a market but a conglomerate of open grill restaurants. If you want you can sit inside of clear curtains and at well-laid tables or just on the bar around the grill. And even just these grills are an experience: more than two meters wide and another two meter depth of ember. On the inclined grill you can see sausages, meatrolls and every kind of cows and pigs. Even if Uruguay had cost us a fortune allready, we had to have a delicious piece. On top of it we were invited to visit the grill inside :)
For public viewing the Motevidean people were quite pragmatic, there were two TVs in the middle of the pedestrianstreet. There we caught the end of the game Switzerland against Spain. But for the game and victory of Uruguay we chose a bar with lots of Uruguayan fans :) In the evening after the game, the streets were full of white and "celeste" like in Argentina :P
Before we went back to Colonia the next day we went to see the olympic stadium build 1923 and still standing. It was the place where the first football world championship was held, the most famous victory of Uruguay (even if they won it again in 1950). Inside of the stadium was a museum of football history, with all of the champions and a lot of nostalgic stuff around Uruguayan football.