• Bron PlaskowskiIt Started As A 2 Week CruiseReisender
    A concrete tank once used to ferment grape juice, now they paint the sides to keep the concrete out!
    It's not just in England that every man's house is his castle.A cannon from HMS Agamemnon, one of the ships at Trafalgar, it sank in the River Plate in a storm.One of a couple of boards on the Battle of Trafalgar.The stuffed ship's dog was a bit of a surprise.Part of the 10mm thick hull of the Graf Spee, with a sizeable hole from incoming munitions.One of the smaller side guns from the Graf Spee.A photo from 1985 of the Punta Carretas prison, the year before it's closure.The prison sign replaced with the name of the shopping centre.A photo from within the arch of one of the remaining, repurposed prison buildings.The names of some of the political prisoners who were housed in the jail.Demijohns of sherry left out to mature.The 2022 sparkling wine still maturing. The bottles are turned each day, must be someone's only job.The difference between a wine cork and an uncompressed sparkling wine cork.They should be looking for a new cleaner for these 1979 bottles.It seems most of their customers come from Brazil.Dining and wine tasting within the cellars.Ready for nibbles and our seven tastings.

    Stories Of Naval Battles

    26. Februar in Uruguay ⋅ 🌬 26 °C

    Yesterday I did just over 30,000 steps so a lay in till 8am felt like a fair reward. Especially as I was up till nearly midnight watching Boca Juniors play Alianza Lima, a team from Peru, in the Copa Libertadores. The south American version of the Champions League. They eventually went out on penalties after Cavani (ex Man Utd) missed an open goal from 4 yards out in the last 90 seconds of the game. I doubt he slept well last night.

    This morning we went to the small naval museum about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. I was surprised that there was a section on the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar and it's tactics. Though reading on in my less than basic Spanish, this was an important battle for South American countries. As it 'cut the umbilical cord' between Spain and it's colonies. Within 20 years most of those colonies had achieved independence and Uruguay too, by 1830.

    The museum also had a section on the first sea battle of WW2 between the Graf Spee, a heavily armoured pocket battle ship, which had already sunk 9 supply ships, and three British cruisers. Who despite suffering huge damage managed to force the Graf Spee into harbour in Montevideo for repairs. Whilst there, through a campaign of misinformation the British convinced the German capitan that there was now a large group of British warships waiting for him to leave harbour. So in order not to let the ship fall into enemy hands and to save his crew, he left harbour and scuttled the ship in the River Plate, much to Hitler's annoyance.

    From there we walked to a shopping centre that was built within the grounds of a prison. The prison was built in 1896 and was used to house political prisoners from as early as the 1920s. Several repurposed buildings still survive today as a reminder to what was here before.

    Then in the afternoon off to one of Carol's favourite excursions, a trip to a winery, our 5th one on these travels. Very nice it was too, we had a proper tour of the winery, had all the processes explained and then got to sample the goods. Well I suppose it was a bit of quid pro quo for this morning's naval museum!    Weiterlesen

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