Colonia

Colonia del Sacramento is in Uruguay. It is a cute little town filled with old colonial building and cobblestone streets.

Get in

Two boats daily arrive from Buenos Aires. A fast expensive one and a cheap slow one. The slower boat costs 102 pesos (from Buenos Aires) round trip, and takes about 3 hours.

Take a boat from Tigre to Carmelo in Uruguay, which is cheaper. From Carmelo, take a bus, they run every two to three hours from the center of the city to Colonia. Great landscape and also drops off kids from school along the way.

Get around

The old city of Colonia is quite small. It can be easily walked in a single day. There are also shops which rent bicycles which you can use to ride around the city or in to the country side.

The ferry terminal is about a half km south of the old city and the main bus terminal is about a km south of the city center. The ferry leaves 4 times a day for Buenos Aires and takes 50 minutes for the fast ferry and 2:30 for the slow ferry.

It is possible to rent row and sail boats from the marina.

See

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The historic center is just irresistable.
Nine small museums in the center can be visited with only one entrance ticket.

For a few pesos you can go up to the top of the lighthouse (faro) and see most of the city and look out over the city and the river.

Outside of the city there is a semi-abandoned amusement park with Uruguay's only bullfighting ring, it's not used anymore.

Eat

The old city is full of restaurants which serve the weekend tourist crowd from Buenos Aires. The specialties are Italian and asada (bbq).

Colonia was also settled by Swiss immigrants and is home to a unique local Swiss cheese that you can get at the markets.

Drink

Yerba mate, what else you gonna drink!? Every single person here carries around their own cup and bombilla, so when in Rome...

Sleep

Hotel Colonia, Av. General Flores 440, 052-28151 (barlocel@edinet.com.uy). Nice basic hostel, with Internet and shared kitchen.

Stay safe

Colonia is a preserved tourist town which very little of the harassment seen in most cities in Latin America. The dominance of local weekenders from Buenos Aires and Montevideo creates a very different environment from tourist cities which primarily host non-Latin American tourists.

Get out

There are frequent buses to Montevideo and several time a day ferries to Buenos Aires and El Tigre Argentina.