Colonia, Uruguay is a small colonial town only an hour (on a fast boat ferry ride) from Buenos Aires. And because of its proximity to BA, it’s also an expensive (more on this later) tourist destination for Argentine weekenders, foreign tourists like us, and expats doing a “visa run” so they can legally return to Argentina for 3 months.
The ferry ride is actually quite nice and easy to set up. You can go online and buy tickets through Buquebus and then pick up your tickets at the clean modern ferry building. As a note to future travelers, there are 3 classes of service on the ferry. We recommend booking the second class or above so that you aren’t fighting for seats. The seats are little larger and the area is a bit more private (and much quieter) in the 2nd and 1st class areas. Here’s a look back at Buenos Aires on our way to Colonia:
As you’ll see in the photos below, the old part of Colonia (west of the port) is very quaint and sleepy with cobblestone streets and art galleries tucked in to aged adobe homes.
This photo was taken on the Calle de los Suspiros, one of the tourist attractions. There’s a really neat art gallery at the end of the street here.
… And below, Lisa checks out the inside of an old car that has been turned in to a dining table at a restaurant called “El Drugstore”.
Speaking of restaurants and shops, old town Colonia is EXTREMELY expensive. We understand that it’s a tourist destination, but the prices are astronomical. Entrees run $20+ USD (!) per dish at the bottom end – we even found a place serving $35 USD steaks. That’s over 3x as expensive as most places in Buenos Aires, at least for the quality we thought we were getting. Just be prepared to shell out, or walk back in to the “real” town where the restaurants get cheaper.
For lunch, we had to try a “chivito” – steak sandwich with ham, cheese, and fried egg – basically an Uruguayan cholesterol bomb. It’s the thing to try when in Uruguay, so here’s an open-faced one we got for about $10 USD. If you want the more authentic experience, there are several food trucks and tents on side streets where the locals go. In hindsight, we probably should have gone to those just to see what that was like, but we didn’t want to eat out in the cold on that day.
For more photos of Colonia, see the slideshow here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tony-chen/sets/72157624261156740/show/