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Bookmark & shareA Top Day in Montevideo
My favorite way to start the day is at a café in Ciudad Vieja. Depending on my mood, I'll either opt for the trendy, purple-walled El Beso, or the atmospheric old Café Brasilero, a Montevideo fixture since 1877, where light pours in through the etched glass windows and coffee and medias lunas taste just a little better thanks to the backdrop of wood panelling, vintage artwork and chandeliers. ; Next it's time for some serious museum-hopping. My favorite three are the Museo del Gaucho, Museo de Arte Precolombino and Museo del Carnaval, focusing respectively on gaucho history, pre-Columbian Uruguay and Montevideo's annual Carnaval. After the Carnaval museum, I'm perfectly positioned for a late lunch at the Mercado del Puerto, where it's always fun to start things off with a medio y medio (half still, half sparkling wine) at the venerable Café\' Roldos. Now it's time to hit Montevideo's beachfront promenade, the Rambla, for an afternoon stroll. You can literally walk the coast for kilometers, from downtown to the airport. But it's just as fun to sit in one spot on the beach watching the local social scene, heavily focused on constantly circulating thermoses of mate. ; If it's a pretty evening I'll stick around for sunset by the waterfront on the panoramic deck of Che Montevideo, although on Sundays I may be tempted to head into Palermo to catch the drumming rehearsals that fill the streets near the corner of Isla de Flores and Gaboto. Around 9pm on most days of the week there's a good concert or play on at Teatro Solís or Sala Zitarrosa, after which it feels delightfully decadent to hit the capital's buzzing streets for an 11pm dinner. Finally, it's time for a nightcap and some more live music at Fun Fun, an old-fashioned tango bar between Plaza Independencia and the waterfront.
Author: Gregor Clark
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