Three days in Colonia del Sacramento: stay the night, after the day boat has gone

Two nights in the Portuguese old town on the estuary, with the cobbled streets and the lighthouse, a ride out to an abandoned bullring, and the sun going down towards Buenos Aires.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Colonia
Places
8 across 3 days
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Colonia was founded in 1680 by the Portuguese, on the wrong side of the river, directly opposite the Spanish at Buenos Aires, and it spent the next century being taken, handed back, besieged and used for smuggling by both sides. That is why a town of twenty-five thousand people has a fortified gate, a Portuguese quarter with irregular cobbles, a Spanish quarter with straight ones, and a UNESCO listing.

The catch is the day trip. The fast ferry from Buenos Aires takes about an hour, so several boatloads arrive mid-morning, walk the same six streets, and are gone by six in the evening. Between then and about ten the following morning the old town belongs to whoever stayed, and it is a different and much better place.

Two nights is right. The barrio histórico is small enough to cross in fifteen minutes, and what fills the extra time is not more sights but the beach, a bicycle, an abandoned bullring up the coast and two sunsets.

Highlights

  • Calle de los Suspiros, a rough cobbled lane sloping straight down to the water
  • The lighthouse, climbable, with the whole peninsula and the estuary from the top
  • The old bullring at Real de San Carlos, abandoned two years after it opened
  • Casa Nacarello, an eighteenth century Portuguese house furnished as it was lived in
  • Sitting on the sea wall on the western point while the sun goes down towards Argentina

Where to stay

Colonia del Sacramento, two nights

The barrio histórico occupies a small peninsula sticking into the estuary, with the river on three sides and a fortified gate on the fourth. Inside it are about eight streets of low whitewashed and ochre houses under vines, half a dozen tiny museums, and more restaurants than the resident population could possibly need.

You can tell who built which street by looking down. Portuguese streets follow the slope with a drainage channel down the middle; Spanish ones are laid out to a grid with the water running at the sides.

Stay inside the old town if you want the evenings, which is the whole reason to sleep here, or in the modern centre a few streets east for lower prices. Both are ten minutes from the terminals.

Day by day

Day 1 in Colonia

Through the gate, down the street of sighs, and out to the bastion for sunset

Come into the old town through the Portón de Campo, the reconstructed city gate with its wooden drawbridge and the stump of the eighteenth century wall running off either side of it. It is the only land entrance and it makes the point immediately: this was a garrison as much as a port.

Then Calle de los Suspiros, which runs from near the main square down to the water and is the picture everybody has seen of Colonia. It is unpaved in the Portuguese manner, with a stone channel down the centre, and it slopes just enough to make walking it an event. There are competing stories about the name, one romantic and one about condemned men, and no evidence for either.

Spend what is left of the afternoon wandering, then be at the Bastión de San Pedro on the southwestern corner before the light goes. This is where the town gathers on the sea wall to watch the sun drop into the Río de la Plata in the direction of Buenos Aires, fifty kilometres out of sight across the water. It is the single best hour in Colonia, and by then the day boat has left.

  1. 15:00

    Portón de Campo

    Historic

    The old city gate and drawbridge with the remains of the walls beside it. Free, and the way into the historic quarter from the modern town.

  2. 15:45

    Calle de los Suspiros

    Landmark

    The most photographed street in Uruguay, rough cobbles running down to the river. Two minutes to walk and worth doing twice, once in the afternoon and once after dark.

  3. 18:30

    The sun sinking into Buenos Aires

    Visit

    The southwestern bastion, where the sea wall faces Argentina. Free, and worth arriving forty minutes before sunset for a place to sit.

  4. 20:30

    Dinner in the old town

    Eat

    Everything here is grilled: beef, provolone on the fire, sweetbreads and chorizo. Ask for a table on a patio facing the water and eat late, once the coaches have gone.

With more time: Lentas Maravillas, a café with a garden that runs down to the river, does tea in the late afternoon and is the best place in the old town to sit with a book. It is also open when almost nothing else is.

Day 2 in Colonia

A bullring that never got used, and the lighthouse in the afternoon

Rent a bicycle at the port and ride north along the shore for about four kilometres to Real de San Carlos. An Argentine shipping magnate built a whole resort here in the first decade of the twentieth century, meant to bring weekenders across from Buenos Aires: a racetrack, a pelota court, a hotel and casino, and an enormous bullring holding several thousand people.

The bullring opened in 1910 and Uruguay banned bullfighting two years later. It held eight fights and then nothing, and for a century it stood open to the weather with the seats collapsing inside it. It has since been fenced and partly stabilised, so what you can do is walk around a vast brick and iron ruin in a field near the sea, which is more than enough. The racetrack next door still runs meetings.

Ride back for lunch, then climb the lighthouse in the old town. It went up in 1857, it is not tall, and the platform at the top gives you the whole peninsula at once: the grid on one side, the crooked Portuguese streets on the other, and the estuary running away to the horizon. The brick ruins of an old Franciscan convent stand beside it.

Finish at Casa Nacarello on the main square, a Portuguese house of the eighteenth century furnished as a household of the period, with low doors, thick walls and uneven glass in the windows. It takes twenty minutes and is the best of the small museums.

  1. 09:30

    The old bullfighting ring

    Visit

    The abandoned bullring four kilometres north, open for two years and then illegal. Ride there, and allow an hour with the racetrack next door.

  2. 13:00

    Lunch back in town

    Eat

    There is a shop in the old town selling slices from forty-odd kinds of pie, savoury and sweet, which is a better lunch than a sit-down meal on a day with a bicycle in it.

  3. 14:30

    The lighthouse

    Architecture

    The 1857 lighthouse in the middle of the old town, with the convent ruins at its foot. A small fee, a narrow stair, and the best view of the peninsula.

  4. 16:00

    Casa Nacarello

    Visit

    An eighteenth century Portuguese house on the main square, furnished as it would have been lived in. Twenty minutes, and on the combined museum ticket.

With more time: The beach north of the centre is long, shallow and almost empty outside January, and the Paseo de San Gabriel walks you along the water back into the old town with a white handrail the whole way.

Day 3 in Colonia

The oldest church in the country, and a room of Portuguese things

The Basílica del Santísimo Sacramento on the Plaza de Armas is the oldest church in Uruguay. A chapel stood here in the 1690s, the present building went up under the Portuguese in 1808 after fire and gunpowder had accounted for its predecessors, and the whitewashed interior is plain to the point of austerity. The square outside holds the excavated footings of the governor's house, with signs marking out which room was which.

A few doors away, the Portuguese Museum occupies an eighteenth century house and holds the things left behind by the century when this was Portuguese: furniture, weapons, maps, tiles and the carved coat of arms that used to sit above the city gate. It explains the town better than any of the others, and it is where the combined ticket is sold.

Then the terminals, which are ten minutes east on foot. The Buenos Aires ferry and the Montevideo coach leave from the same block.

  1. 09:30

    Basilica del Santísimo Sacramento

    Religious

    The oldest church in Uruguay, on the Plaza de Armas with the governor's house excavated outside it. Free, and twenty minutes.

  2. 10:30

    Portuguese Museum

    Culture

    The Portuguese collection in an eighteenth century house, including the arms that stood over the gate. Half an hour, and the combined museum ticket is sold here.

  3. 12:00

    Ferry or coach

    Travel

    The port and the coach station share a block ten minutes east of the gate. An hour before the ferry is enough, including both countries' immigration.

With more time: With longer, ride or drive an hour up the coast to Carmelo, a small river town among the vineyards where several wineries open for tastings, and where the sunsets over the delta are the ones locals rate above Colonia's.

Before you go

Getting in

From Buenos Aires, the fast ferry takes about an hour and there are several sailings a day. Immigration for both countries is done in one hall before boarding, which makes the crossing simpler than most international borders.

From Montevideo, buses leave Tres Cruces roughly hourly and take two and a half to three and a half hours depending on how many towns they call at. Buy at the counter or on board; the claim that everything is sold out is usually a sales technique.

The bus and ferry terminals are next to each other, about 500 metres east of the old town, and you can walk it with a bag.

Getting around

The historic quarter is a few hundred metres across and entirely walkable. The cobbles are the original ones and are genuinely uneven, so leave the smooth soles at home.

For everything beyond it, rent something at the port: bicycles, scooters and golf carts are all available by the hour or the day, and the golf carts are so ubiquitous that they have become part of the town's character. The bullring, the racetrack and the beaches north of the centre are a comfortable half hour by bike on a flat road.

When to come, and what it costs

Colonia is busiest from December to February, when Argentines and Uruguayans arrive for the summer and the restaurants need booking. Spring and autumn are ideal: warm days, no crowds and the old town almost to yourself once the boat has gone. In winter many places shut and the streets can feel eerie.

Uruguay is expensive by South American standards and Colonia is expensive by Uruguayan ones, since it is a weekend town for two capitals. Cards work almost everywhere and foreign cards have the VAT taken off restaurant bills.

One combined ticket covers most of the small museums in the old town and is sold at the Portuguese Museum. They close on rotating days, so buy the ticket first and plan around what is actually open.

Colonia is a town that changed hands nine times and somehow came out of it looking calm. Three days is long enough to stop treating it as a stop on the way between two capitals and start treating it as the reason for the trip.

With longer, carry on up the river to Carmelo and the wineries, or take the coach east to Montevideo, which is under three hours away and a very different country from this one.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Colonia worth more than a day trip?
Yes, and it is close to the whole argument for coming. The old town is small enough to see in four hours, which is why the boats sell day trips, but the town people remember is the one after the last ferry has gone, when the cobbles empty and the restaurants fill with people who are staying.
How do you get here from Buenos Aires?
The fast ferry, about an hour, several times a day, with both countries' immigration handled in the terminal before you board. Slower and cheaper sailings take around three hours. Many services continue to Montevideo by coach on the same ticket.
Do you need a car?
No. The historic quarter is walkable and everything else is a flat few kilometres, which is what the bicycles, scooters and golf carts at the port are for. A car only helps if you are going on to Carmelo and the wine country.
When is the best time to visit?
October to December and March to April: warm enough for the beach and the sea wall, without the summer crowds or the winter closures. February is hot, busy and the month when the sunset lines up most precisely with Buenos Aires across the water.