Montevideo, Uruguay

February 14-15th

Valentine’s Day

If you can’t laugh like a loon with your Valentine, are they really a good Valentine?

Around Town

The Odyssey arrived in Montevideo on Valentine’s Day, and I was excited to be back in the capital of Uruguay. Yes I had been here last year, but I had spent most of my time at a Beer and Beef tasting and was quiet tipsy by the time I was done, so here was my chance to explore a little more of the town.

It was also Michael’s last stop before his contract was up and he got off board, so I wanted to drag him out and about. We made it out to a few spots before he needed to head back to the ship to work, and I saw the rest the next day.

Seems like an appropriate building for Valentine’s Day.

Architecturally, Montevideo Old City is a treasure trove of buildings with interesting exteriors

English Temple – or the Temple of the Holy Trinity – is an Anglican cathedral. The original building was constructed in 1830 on the seashore. It was moved further inland in 1936.

Salvo Palace is on the corner of Independence Square. It was built in 1928 and was at the time the tallest building in Latin America at 95m tall.

Looking down Peatonal Sarandi, a major pedestrian street in the old city.

Solis Theatre is Uruguay’s oldest theatre. It opened its doors in 1856 and was reconstructed in 1998.

Constitution Square (1726) is the oldest city square in Montevideo and sits outside the cathedral.

Interior of the cathedral. The first brick was laid in 1740, but the foundation was laid for the current cathedral in 1790.

Casa de Lavalleja (1783) is Montevideo’s oldest colonial home that has preserved its original architecture.

Iglesia de San Francisco (1724 but rebuilt in 1864).

Plaza Zabala was the site of the old fort that was destroyed. Michael kept calling this Uraguyan porn.

Amidst all the buildings was the usual street art, but not nearly the amount that we had seen in previous ports.

Now just because I wasn’t on a specific beef tour didn’t mean that I didn’t try some more of that famous meat here. The Port Market isn’t a market anymore but is home to several barbeque restaurants and souvenir shops. We made sure to stop in for Valentine’s lunch here and I came back the next day for lunch again. It was a little pricey- most steaks were about $25-30, but very tasty.

They also have a local dish that came from Argentina, sorrentino, and is similar to ravioli, but better. I had the ham and cheese ones for my first lunch and it was rich and filling.

The interior of Mercado del Puerto (1865) was built of iron and is home to many delicious restaurants.

The Great Dissappointment

For Valentine’s Day, the ship had prepared a special diner and moved the tables out of the center of our dining room to give the band room to play music. It was nice, but over 100 of us had tickets to visit the local carnival in town.

Carnival in Uruguay lasts 40 days and is cheaper and less frantic compared to Brazil. As a group, we had pretty much booked out the venue for the evening, and we were excited to be going.

Uruguayan Carnival – Wikipedia

Sadly for us after getting onto our buses it began to rain. The event is held outdoors, so this meant that it was canceled for the evening. So sad.

Our poor ship employees had to scramble to get new Valentine’s Day stuff going after we all came back. They did a fabulous job.

We were supposed to do one more Uruguayan port after Bunios Aries but it was cancelled for the Odyssey to complete some repairs for our Brazilian inspection.

Chasing Summer –