Colonia del Sacramento

¡Hola desde Uruguay!

Today was our last day in Uruguay and we ended our time in that amazing country with a visit to the beautiful world heritage site, Colonia del Sacramento.

Our tour guide, Sofía Guardone, gave us a little background information on the colony as we rode there. This was a colony first established in 1680 by Manuel Lobo by order of the Portuguese crown. There were numerous conflicts and attempted resolutions such as the Spanish War of Succession and the subsequent Siege of Colonia del Sacramento, The Treaty of Utrecht, and the Spanish-Portuguese War, which led to the colony being continually swapped between the two powers for the next 128 years. Colonia del Sacramento finally found stability and peace when Uruguay gained independence in 1828 and took possession of the area.

After learning a bit about the colony both from Sofía and what we could recall from our pre-depature class, we broke up into small groups to explore the colony at our own pace.

My group started by exploring the old colony parts. As a result of the extensive history between Spain and Portugal, Colonia del Sacramento is a unique blend of both the cultures. This is most clearly reflected in the infrastructure. (The convergence of Portuguese and Spanish roads)

As the area continued to expand, whichever country was in charge built the infrastructure in their own style. Portugal built bumpy narrow windy roads that were dictated by the landscape. Spain on the other hand built wide and flat roads where they needed them to be. The same ideology applied to the buildings. Portugal had stone and tile buildings that worked with the environment while Spain had buildings in a more modern block style.

(A Portuguese style building)

(Floor plan of a Portuguese Building)

(Spanish block layout)

After exploring the roads, looking at all the buildings, and reading the historic plaques, we toured the streets and visited the little shops on the sides of the street. There was everything from cute tourist souvenir shops to boutiques to hand crafted scarves.

From there we decided to take a break from the hot sun and had dinner at a lovely restaurant called “Punta Pierda” in the Historic Quarter of Colonia del Sacramento. Everyone in my group had some type of pasta dish. Despite the significant influences of Portuguese and Spanish, Italian won out for our dinner choice.

(Punta Pierda)

After dinner we passed a few more small stores and a gelato shop before we headed on the bus to catch the ferry back to Buenos Aires.

More updates to come from Argentina!

Kiana Pino