{"id":872,"date":"2023-12-04T20:48:27","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T20:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/?p=872"},"modified":"2023-12-04T20:48:29","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T20:48:29","slug":"colonia-del-sacramento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/12\/04\/colonia-del-sacramento\/","title":{"rendered":"Colonia del Sacramento"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tourist Time<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Uruguay does not have much in the way of passenger trains.\u00a0 For the masses, long distance travel is either by private vehicle or by bus.\u00a0 We don’t fancy renting a car so are taking the bus and it is a pleasant four hour journey from Montevideo to one of Uruguay\u2019s oldest towns – Colonia del Sacramento.\u00a0 Comfy seats, decent legroom and free wifi.\u00a0 A traveller could get used to this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We meet with some of Rosana’s family who have travelled from their home in Paysandu for the weekend.\u00a0 We rent a house within walking distance of the UNESCO World Heritage old town and stock up on pizza, snacks and beer.\u00a0 I practice some more Spanish in vague hope of understanding something.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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History Lesson<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Colonia del Sacramento has a long history.\u00a0 Founded by the Portuguese in 1680, it occupies a prominent position on the Rio del la Plata, across from Buenos Aires.\u00a0 Control of the town changed hands many times until 1828, when France and the United Kingdom mediated the Treaty of Montevideo, bringing to an end the Cisplatine War.\u00a0 The independence of Cispatine was acknowledged under the name of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay.\u00a0 Colonia has remained Uruguayan ever since.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chivito Time<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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We spend the weekend wandering the cobbled streets and along the fortifications.\u00a0 Understandably it\u2019s a popular place and despite the chilly weather it is busy with visitors.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s hard to stand still without appearing in someone\u2019s selfie.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stone built houses with long histories line the streets. Some a clearly cared for, painted bright colours. Others have been left to crumble. Rooflines of aging tiles ripple with the weight of time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casting its eye over it all is the lighthouse, built into the corner of a derelict convent. \u00a0For a few Pesos you can make the climb to the top to get a birds eye view of town.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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In one of the many restaurants I eat a Chivito worthy of my YouTube memory<\/a>.\u00a0 This makes me very happy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we visit the town’s museums, each with a different theme, I am particularly taken by the antique maps and charts on display but avoid the gift shops so that I am not tempted to buy replicas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A Load of Bull<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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Outside of the old town is the Plaza de toros Real de San Carlos. It opened in 1909 and hosted only 8 bull fights before bull fighting was banned in Uruguay in 1912. It then spent a century falling into disrepair before restoration work began in 2021 with the intention to bring it back to life as a sporting and cultural centre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a beautiful building, built in a Moorish style and it comes alive when lit up at night. The restoration is sympathetic, keeping the buildings original features and leaving some of the ravages of time visible. I don’t understand much of the tour, Rosana translates as much as she can and I get a sense of the bloodied history and the work that has been undertaken to bring the building back to a more peaceful life. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s a fun weekend learning some of Uruguay\u2019s history and catching up with family. We head north, back to the family home for a while, before making plans for the next adventure – Argentina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Colonia del Sacremento.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,95,96],"tags":[103,102,35,97,21,98],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-travel","category-south-america","category-uruguay","tag-3tenths","tag-colonia-del-sacremento","tag-early-retirement","tag-south-america","tag-travel","tag-uruguay"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/street6-scaled.jpeg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":893,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions\/893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}