For many tourists, there are only two reasons to visit Uruguay: beachy, clubby Punta del Este and quaint, historic Colonia del Sacramento. Montevideo, the nation's relaxed capital on the banks of the Rio de la Plata, offers an eclectic mix of architecture and culture, but is often relegated to the status of stopover.
Perhaps that is because the city doesn't exactly reach out to grab you. Like Uruguayans, it sits back and reveals itself little by little. There is much of the old, and a small but slowly growing dose of the new.
“We have a conservative mentality, very conservative, and so we don't like change,” says Eduardo Lopez, who has been selling coins and antiques at the Saturday flea market on Plaza Constitucion for 12 years. As an impromptu parade of soldiers in ceremonial uniforms tromps by, he adds that since the country's banking crisis in 2002, there has been little money for investing in the future. The economy is growing again, but so far that growth hasn't produced many new facilities for travelers.
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The past lives on in style, though. Back in 1870, the average living standards there were higher than in the US, and it shows. Take a walk through the Old City, where almost every street has a view of the water, sometimes at both ends, and you'll discover a bounty of architectural treasures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
A good place to start is the National History Museum, housed in 10 old residences. The main museum is in the former home of Fructuoso Rivera, the country's first president; the collection traces the country's history from before the European colonization to the middle of the 20th century.
The corner is marked by an upturned cannon, but you also can't miss the building's octagonal cupola. Another of the houses, in slightly worse repair, was occupied by Giuseppe Garibaldi (known locally as Jose) when he led the Uruguayan fleet in the 1840s.
A few blocks away stands the gorgeous and idiosyncratic Palacio Taranco, at the corner of 25th of May and 1st of May streets. It's a sprawling castle from 1910, decked out with stone urns and Roman arches, that used to be a family residence but now houses the Museum of Decorative Arts, with a collection of European antiques that ranges from paintings to porcelain.
The Old City isn't just a collection of architectural heirlooms, though. Some of the country's hippest young designers have installed their boutiques on its narrow streets. At 280 25th of May St., a metal door with pink and red portholes stands out like the proverbial aching digit. Inside is a sleek store selling the creations of Ana Livni and Fernando Escuder, avant-garde designs using soft materials and occasional shots of bright color.
“Design here is growing — very slowly, but it's growing,” says Stefania Reta, a design student who works there. She also says that there's a streak of patriotism among the younger generation.
“They all studied here,” she says of the local designers. “The idea is always to make it grow here, to apply our knowledge here.”
If you're looking for more traditional knits and leather goods, the nearby Mercado del Puerto (Port Market) is worth a stop. For the locals, though, it's more of a lunch spot; dozens sit at long counters, facing open grills covered with fat cuts of beef, sausages and enormous red peppers.
Alternatively, you can head up Sarandi, a pedestrianized street with outdoor sculpture on show, toward the Plaza Independencia. On the way, you're likely to see a horse or two dragging a cartful of miscellaneous junk, or perhaps some sarcastic graffiti.
At the eastern end of the Plaza Independencia looms a uniquely peculiar building. The Palacio Salvo, finished in 1928, looks like a multistage rocket as imagined by Jules Verne. Some people say that once, atop its 26 stories, a lighthouse was able to signal a similar skyscraper designed by the same architect, Mario Palanti, across the gaping river in Buenos Aires. It seems unlikely, though, given the distance of nearly 225km between the two cities.
The surrounding downtown area is dotted with restaurants serving the unofficial national dish, the chivito, perhaps the world's most extravagant steak sandwich. One is the Manchester, a vintage diner at the corner of 18th of July and Convencion whose logo, perplexingly, includes London's Big Ben. Its chivito consists of a tender fillet on homestyle bread with cheese, bacon, tomato, lettuce, roasted red peppers, palm hearts, hard-boiled egg and olives on top — for 95 pesos (US$3.80).
On Sundays, a short walk up 18th of July brings you to one of the wildest street markets you'll ever see, the Tristan Narvaja Fair. The fair takes places on Tristan Narvaja Street, but its stalls, selling everything from live tarantulas to tiny clay ocarinas, spill out onto all the surrounding byways.
The street itself is lined with used book and antiques stores, which quickly fill up when it rains. So does La Tortuguita, a noisy neighborhood joint where the chivitos are served al plato, on a plate with bread on the side. The steak reclines on a bed of fries, lettuce and tomato, and is topped with boiled potatoes, carrots and peas, roasted red peppers, cheese, bacon, olives, mayonnaise and a fried egg. If you don't look as if you're eating it correctly — that is, slicing through the pile to get a taste of everything on your fork — a friendly waiter will intervene.
If the you-could-hardly-call-it-bustle of Montevideo's center gets to be too much, head for the banks of the river, which locals call the sea. The entire city is rimmed by the Rambla, a road that is itself lined with rocky and sandy beaches. There are glassed-in cafes looking out onto the river, and even a few perched on the beach itself like CHE Montevideo, near the corner of 21st of September.
Over a cappuccino at CHE, Virginia, an architect who did not want her last name used, says that Montevideo is mostly a destination for Argentines, Brazilians and Chileans, with few tourists from farther afield.
“The Ministry of Tourism focuses on Punta del Este and not Montevideo — and it's even less with this government,” she says. “There's more cultural activity here, but the tourists don't look for it so much. There are shows, there are galleries, there's the Contemporary Art Foundation,” which is a self-supporting group made up of young artists working in various media.
Indeed, if there is one building that is particularly well cared for, it's the city's cultural temple, the Teatro Solis. The theater, which dates from 1856, was renovated in 1998 and remains pristine.
As part of the renovation, a single set of staircases was built to connect all the floors, replacing the old system that had separated the expensive seats from the upper decks at the behest of the theater's original, class-conscious backers.
When the sun sets, well-to-do Montevideans head to Pocitos and Punta Carretas, on a peninsula a few minutes' taxi ride from the city center. In these mostly residential neighborhoods, some of the capital's best restaurants occupy gracious old houses.
Between its dark wood floors and ceilings, Da Pentella mixes fresh pasta and nightly specials like roast suckling pig and stuffed rabbit. Not far away, La Perdiz, a buzzing local favorite, offers fresh seafood like grilled chipirones (baby squid) in garlic and oil, as well as the usual meats, in portions that are big enough to share.
Afterward, it's back to the Old City, where the streets around Bartolome Mitre and Sarandi quickly fill up with outdoor seating for the city's busiest bars.
For something a bit quieter, you can retreat to Carrasco, a leafy enclave of the moneyed classes on the east side of Montevideo that boasts a remarkable variety of birdlife. Carrasco even has its own English-style country hotel in the Belmont House, with the requisite antiques as well as portraits by Juan Manuel Blanes, one of Uruguay's best-known 19th-century painters.
It's worth walking down to the Rambla, past the Argentine ambassador's splendid residence, to see the monstrous hulk of the Hotel Casino Carrasco. Built in 1921, the graying colossus is undergoing a much-needed renovation.
Back inland a block or two are several of Carrasco's finer restaurants, notably Baltasar, which opened in 2005. “The majority of the clientele are families from here, but some also come from Pocitos and Punta Carretas,” says Fernando de Castro, Baltasar's owner.
The trip to Carrasco from the center takes about 20 minutes by car, and longer by bus. But it's clearly not just geography that separates Carrasco from the modest living in the rest of Montevideo.
That split between the classes leaves Eduardo Lopez, the coin seller, feeling worried. “There's a high unemployment rate,” he says. “The middle class is disappearing. You're poor or you're rich.”
But Virginia, the architect, who seems pretty middle class, says she isn't planning to leave. “It doesn't seem like life's better in other countries,” she says, adding that she spent a couple of months working in Coral Gables, Florida. “There are different things, but not better ones.”
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