Exploring Montevideo's beaches

We switched to the blue line which takes passengers along the Rambla, past all of the city's beaches.  The Rambla of Montevideo is the coastal avenue along the Rio de la Plata.  It is over 22 kilometres long.  The Rambla is an integral part of Montevidean identity and has been proposed as a World Heritage site.  It is an environment for a wide variety of outdoor activities such as jogging, walking, cycling, fishing, kite-flying, sunbathing, and drinking mate.  Skateboarding and roller skating are also possible in special areas for these activities.  The beaches are state-owned, and building anything across the Rambla is strictly regulated.

We expected the beaches to be busy on such a hot, sunny afternoon, but there was still plenty of room to be had.  There did seem to be lots of people walking and using the cycle lanes, but I don't know how many of these were tourists.  When we got off the bus to take photos of the Montevideo sign, we bumped into four of our group who had cycled there on bikes hired from the hostel.

We hopped back on the bus and rode another couple of stops to Playa Marvin.  We got off here because we spotted a nice-looking place for lunch.  Bars and restaurants were surprisingly few and far between along the beach!  For lunch, Mark had prawn croquettes as a starter.  He said they were delicious!  For mains, we shared a chivito, the national dish of Uruguay.  It is a sandwich made with ciabatta bread filled with steak, tomato, onion, lettuce, ham, cheese, hard-boiled egg, and mayonnaise, served with fries!  It was good, but we definitely couldn't have managed one each!!  I also had an Aperol Spritz - my first alcoholic drink of the entire trip!

After lunch, we got back on the bus and completed the Ramblas circuit.  The beaches were still largely deserted.Read more