Colonia del Sacramento

Our alarm rang at 7 but it was raining heavily so we took it slow with packing and getting ready. Shortly after 8 we were ready and it had stopped raining so we took a bus to the bus terminal Tres Cruces. This turned out to be not only a bus terminal but a huge shopping center. First we booked the bus tickets to Colonia del Sacramento, then went for a little breakfast snack and searched - unsuccessfully - for a patch of the Uruguayan flag 🇺🇾
The hour of waiting went by pretty quick and then we hopped on the bus that brought us through the flat and uneventful countryside. A lot of standalone, agricultural housings mainly dominated the scenery.

We had booked our hotel in a strategic position between the old city, beach, bus terminal and ferry terminal. So that was our first stop when we arrived 2.5 hours later in the town of Colonia del Sacramento. Our idea was to have one or two beach days towards the end of our trip and before going to Buenos Aires. Even though the weather wasn't very inviting today, we still decided to go to the nearby beach and relax a little bit in the nice sand. The water was quite cold on first contact and a little dirty. Also it might be surprising that it's sweet water from the Rio De La Plata. We spend some time there and even the sun came out occasionally. Afterwards we made our way to the old city center located on the peninsula. It is packed with nice old buildings and charm, like the prominent lighthouse and the Basílica del Santísimo Sacramento. The cobblestone streets overgrown with trees and colourful bushes alongside colourful little colonial houses. It has a very unique, relaxed flair and we enjoyed walking the little streets. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and lives up to that expectations.
We walked a bit outside of the center for a little afternoon snack/lunch where I finally tried a choripan (chorizo sausage on bread). And it was really good, I prefer it over a hot dog 🌭👋 Then we checked the nearby ferry terminal for the ticket to Buenos Aires tomorrow morning. Afterwards we went back to the hotel to relax a bit until dinner time. The receptionist had recommended a nearby restaurant but the reviews online weren't very good. We still walked there to have a look and it looked nice, also they had a menu item that I wanted to try. And they had quite a lot of Uruguayan wine options 🍷that we wanted to try for our last night. Everything turned out to be great, from the food over the service to the wine, we were happy 😊
Especially the wine was interesting as we had never heard of that grape variety before, Tannat.Read more