Started the morning with the heated pool for recharging.

Great view

Headed to the mall to pick this up at the Pandora store.

Then lunch, we thought we found a great pizza because of the wood fire oven but it was ok, not great.

Pizza served deep dish style.

Next up was a visit to the Zorrilla Museum (famous poet). It’s a really nice home.

The history is intriguing.

After the Zorilla, a quick stop to Canada Plaza

The view from a bench in Canada Square.

Then onto the end of the earth!

It was a LONG walk out here.

You can see a clear line separation ocean and river in the image below.

Nice nearby marina.

We have a dinner date with an expat group that lives here in Uruguay at a rumored Indian restaurant so we’ll see how the night goes…will report back tomorrow.

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First stop after breakfast today and our long weekend day trips was laundry. This place is right near our hotel and they charge about $8 usd per load.

Next stop was to check grocery store prices and visit the nearby mall. The Disco grocer in this area is the cleanest and largest grocery store I’ve been to so far but it has all sorts of antsy clerks with non-sensical rules. For example, I went to the self-check out with a couple of items but my card wouldn’t work so I grabbed the items and headed back toward the manned check out lane but the clerk stopped me and said I couldn’t go back with the items. I explained my card wasn’t working so he went to the terminal and did something to get my card to work. Not sure where and what I was to do with the items if the card had failed again because evidently you can’t go back to the general store area.

At lunch time found a new burger place called Rudy’s Burgers and these have been the best burgers in Montevideo!

The picture doesnt do it justice because this stack barely fit in my mouth.

No “cubiertos” tax and let’s hope they keep it that way.

After lunch I walked the Punta Carretas mall but there wasn’t anything unique or spectacular about it. There is a movie theater, standard clothing shops, several optometry shops, and food court with many American chains: Burger King, McDonalds, Subway, KFC and a SBarro.

Movie theater experience….

Its cold and foggy outside so gonna watch the Man of Steel.

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Last night we had dinner at a restaurant near our hotel. It was refreshing to see open restaurants after Ciudad Viejo.

Sushi roll below, loaded with sauces

Different roll, loaded with sauces

So this restaurant near our hotel has a heavy “cubiertos” tax of $340 pesos or $8 USD. We got two slices of bread when we sat dowb.

This morning we are off to Punta del Este. Our first stop was an old whale perch to watch whales now removed and replaced with the whale tail.

During the September and October, mother whales being their young here to train them how to hunt.

Interesting pier.

There are sea lions in the bay by the fish market hoping for scraps or generous fishermen.

Fish market below.

Sucker sea likn thought this guy had fish.

We ate lunch at the restaurant below, had the dreaded “cubiertos” tax.

After lunch, we stopped at this interesting intersection where if you stand at the center you can see four different bodies of water in the distance: atlantic ocean, bahia de maldonado, rio de la plata, canal de lobos.

The Punta de las Salinas is the southernmost point in Uruguay and a WWWII naval battle happened in the area.

The Hand.

The bridge below is known as Puente Leonel Veira and is famous for the wavy design. We drove over it in both directions and felt like a roller coaster.

Our last stop was casapuebla which is an amazing house on top of mountain with a view of the sun set. The house features many different works of art.

Two hour drive back to Montevideo….

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We headed out to Colonia Del Sacramento today but our first stop was the free (for platinum members) breakfast buffet.

Our first stop was the first and oldest church in Uruguay, the San Benito chapel.

Our next stop was the Plaza de Torros. Its a bullfighting ring.

Bull fighting is no longer allowed in Uruguay so this is now a restaurant and shopping center.

The image below is from a flyer a tout gave us and the interesting thing to note are the words “no cobramos cubiertos” which means they dont charge for table setup (cutlery, napkins, plates, etc). The last restaurant we ate at charged us U$150 ($3.70 usd) for the table setup. I hope restaurants in the U.S. dont start this trend.

Some restaurants here ask if you want to leave a “service” tip and others dont. If you’re visiting Uruguay its important to note these extra fees before ordering especially if you are on a budget.

Colonia is a great little town. Feels very warm, cozy and laid back. There are quite a few artisans here and this community caters to the retired folks so its not necessarily cheap.

It’s a 2 hr bus ride back to Montevideo so we are signing off early today!

Addendum: We had one last stop at the collectors museum. The owner holds 6 Guiness records.

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We checked out of our VRBO apartment and said farewell to our kitchen. We moved to a hotel at Punta Carretas to stay in a different part of Montevideo. Punta Carretas is a bit more upscale and modern so we’re eager to find restaurants, and shops that are open.

Checkout was at 11 a.m. and our hotel check in wasn’t ready so we left our luggage and went to a coffee shop across the street from the hotel.

After checking in we took a taxi to the Hard Rock Cafe Montevideo which was located in Pocitos Nuevos to pick up an item for someone back home ;).

We checked the menu at Hard Rock and weren’t impressed so we decided to walk to “El Italiano” which came highly recommended by our taxi driver for great seafood. Below is fried “Langostinos” with panko breading.

I ordered the seafood paella and it was amazing.

Another dish was seafood ravioli. The pasta itself was black because it was made with the ink from a squid.

And the lovely price tab. Note that this restaurant charges for the initial bread offering and setup. $2820 = $71 USD.

After the heavy lunch, we decided to walk back to our hotel from Pocitos Nuevos to Punta Carretas which is about 2.6 miles. From the sign below you walk toward the beach along the crescent and around back to Punta Carretas, the weather was great.

Below is Playa Pocitos

Along the way we found this statue of Gandhi. Interesting to find Jesus and Gandhi in Montevideo. Who will we find next?

Finally made it back to the hotel.

Tomorrow, we have an exciting trip so stay tuned!

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Today is our last full day in Ciudad Vieja and started packing things up but we made one last trip to eat at a restaurant Anthony Bourdain ate at here except it was closed.

We found another restaurant with similar menu and ate there call La Chacra del Puerto.

The beef steak was amazing. It was cooked on a charcoal grill so it had the added smoke flavor. Tender and juicy and melt in your mouth flavor country.

Skip the fries, they were fairly bland.

The big clue that this would be a great place was the image below indicating they are aware of the cuts of beef available in a cow.

Total tab (with tip) was $2800 ($69 USD)

We move to a hotel in Punta Carretas tomorrow and closer to more upscale environment.

The image below is of a walk along Ciudad Vieja main st.

We then walked to the Museum of Decorative Arts, essentially a large older estate home.

The exterior.

The interior conference room.

The piano room.

Exterior garden.

After the estate visit, we headed to the National Historic Museum.

Lots of old pistols and guns but the one below is my favorite as it has a tapered canon looking end.

Interesting historical painting and journal.

In the image below, you can see an offset embedded in the image. The original painting featured only men and everyone knows women exist and participate in its effects so the artist here added a layer that included women and their role during war.

Cool painting.

Our last day on this side of town so took one last photo of the vast ocean and our tiny role in it.

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We started the morning at Flora, a cafe a few blocks from our apartment. The issue we have had even though we both speak and read spanish is that the spanish language has variations and Uruguay spanish is no different.

Above is snapshots of the menu. Can you guess what queso dambo is? We didnt know and the translator app didnt help. We asked Chatgpt:

Queso Dambo (Uruguayan cheese)

A semi-soft, mild cheese widely available in supermarkets and delis. Colonial brand offers “Dambo para sándwich” and shredded hebras varieties  . It’s sold by weight (e.g., 500 g or 3.7 kg blocks), with prices around $300 UY per 500 g at Mercatino  .

Dambo (the company)

Dambo S.A. is a well-known Uruguayan agro-export firm specializing in grains like rice, soy, and seeds. Headquartered in Rivera, with major mills including a new rice-processing plant inaugurated in Treinta y Tres in Feb 2023 by President Lacalle Pou  . Led by CEO Zeferino Escosteguy  

So in essence, “Dambo” is a name brand of cheese similar to saying “Kraft” cheese in the United States.

What about palta? Turns out that is the word for avocado here which is notmally aguacate in Spanish.

Lomito is a small cut of beef.

After breakfast, I went for a walk to look for a network cable but stopped by at some fast food places to capture food costs. The menu below is from McDonalds. $400 Uruguay = about $10 USD.

If you want a bargain value meal, there is a franchise called Mostaza that sells the combo meal below for $259 or $6.40 USD.

For lunch, I cooked up the Gourmeat outside fajita skirt meat I bought the other day. It was great, however all the beef here has a consistent organic “earth” flavor. This has been true of the short ribs, ribeye steaks and the outside skirt. I suspect the cattle is served grass and not corn for the duration of their feeding. If you come from the U.S. and eat the meat here you may be put off by the flavor but this is what real organic meat is supposed to taste like!

On our way to our afternoon wine tour, we stopped by this butcher shop which is typical of all butcher shops we have seen so far. As you can see from the photo, the selection in limited and this shop has more cuts than the usual butcher shop. For a wider selection and premium cuts, you need to visit Gourmeat.

Below were some of the sample sales of the meat market above.

This is the city winery tour where we saw a short video about the history of wine making in Uruguay.

It’s a very nice place inside but if you need a wheelchair beware that this place has three stories and only stairs.

There is a cool room on the third floor that features an immersive 360 video room that shows the history of the Pizarro wine legacy.

A scene featuring the ocean from all side and bottom of room.

Our setting outside on the third floor. Pro tip: They change the wines every few months so don’t book multiple tastings on the same week as they’ll likely feature the same wines.

The food pairings that go with each wine. Brie cheese with walnut paired with white Albarino, a “hummus” dish paired with Nebbiolo wine, a salmon on toast paired with Syrah, an empanada paired with a Tannat, and a Tiramisu dessert paired with a Pizzorno reserve blend.

The Pizzorno logo on barrel.

The winner (the one we bought) wasnt part of the tasting, we asked to try the Pizzoro Tannat reserve and our host obliged.

We also picked up some Pizzoro olive oil and Tannat infused salt.

Lastly we ordered some empanadas to eat as dinner since it was getting late.

Back to apartment to do laundry….

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Started the day at Trea Cruces shopping. Below are photos to give you and idea of how much stuff costs.

The stuff below is from a grocery store called Ingles.

After the shopping excursion it was back home for lunch to cook those ribeyes.

In the afternoon we decided to go visit the National Museum for Visual Arts. While we were waiting for our taxi, Jesus (yes, everyone’s Lord and Savior) came up to me and gave me a hug and left. He came back later and asked for some coins for coffee, I told him I didnt have any and he said there are coins in your pocket so I checked and handed them to him. Its the third time I meet big J here on earth but that’s a story for another day…

National Museum of Visual Arts

Here are some of my favorite art works.

After walking for an hour looking for an open restaurant at 5 pm, we came across this place.

Yes, it’s a Mexican restaurant in Uruguay. We lobster tacos and a mix/match of tacos (chicken, beef, lobster) – delicious!

By the way, the entire day was cold and foggy.

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The morning started with some coffee at a shop called Flor (flower). Two coffees and two chocolates was 390 pesos or about $10 USD.

After the coffee, I went on the hunt for some ribeye and outside skirt beef cuts. A Facebook group suggested a place called Gourmeat in the Pocitos neighborhood. It was too far to walk so I took an Uber taxi for about $5 to the store.

Gourmeat had a far better selection of the cuts I like and scored some outside skirt and ribeye. The outside skirt is well marbled but I wanted to verify that it wasn’t inside skirt so I asked the clerk and he said the people here don’t eat inside skirt. Clearly Uruguayans have superior meat taste buds.

Cost of the meat was $1600 pesos or $41 USD

After the beef hunt, I headed to El Mercado del Puerto in Ciudad Vieja. Lots of shops and restaurants but unfortunately many closed on Mondays.

The tout lured me into the restaurant “El Peregrino” with the promise of hot soup. He didn’t disappoint.

Next up ordered the grilled cheese and got this…

The fish of the day was amazing! It was Merzula (Hake) and I had the same fish in Ireland.

The salmon was great too! We met a couple at lunch from Virginia. They were visiting Uruguay as a potential place to retire. It seems there weren’t confident in remaining the United States much longer given the ever increasing costs of insurance, health care, food and other things.

After lunch we headed out to do some local shopping. We picked up the Canary mate herb to make teas and some chocolate cookies and other items. Then we went to see this very long pier in Ciudad Vieja.

It was a long walk down Faro de la Escollera Sarandí.

You do get a great view of Montevideo but those large block obstruct some of the view.

There is also a large shipping terminal here and there are containers stacked fairly high.

Great weather at 58 F in Montevideo.

We walked back to our apartment and saw this old smoke stack.

We landed at our apartment in the early evening and ate some empanadas we bought at the market for dinner.

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Let’s talk about groceries. We were suprised to learn where some of the foods below come from, can you guess where?

The beans on the left are from Italy. The corn is from China. The mushrooms from Uruguay and the salt and spice are unknown but likely Uruguay.

The beef here is all local but we struggle to find the right cuts of meats. Sirloin tip seems popular as its available everywhere but ribeyes, t-bones and porter loin are nowhere to be found.

We found what we think is a t-bone steak but all the label states is “asado” and they could be short ribs too. After cooking them, they were short ribs.

We had coffee at starbucks and that was a pricey endeavor. Two ham stuffed croissants and two coffees were $30 USD.

The wine has been excellent. It is fairly inexpensive for high quality. The “reserve” bottles have been under $10 USD.

We spent most of the day today a Bouza winery. A tour bus came to pick us up and take us there. It was about a 40 minute drive there and back and we spent a few hours touring the wine facility and tasting a variety of wines.

There was a wine pairing with each item below. Excellent flavor and wines were great.

We met a linguistics professor from LSU here who was doing a study abroad program with his students in Cordova, Argentina.

The wine vault holds some of the wineries most special wines.

There is an interesting collection of old antique cars and motorcycles in the main facility.

The grounds are as majestic as you’d expect for wine country.

After the winery we were a bit tired. We bought some food items at a nearby bodega for lunch then had beef leftovers and the canned food at the top of this post for dinner.

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