Occasional Gadling contributor Blaine Zuver is in
Montevideo, Uruguay and sent in this dispatch:
Montevideo is a nice laid-back city where half of
Uruguay’s population lives. The streets are wide and empty – there’s never a traffic jam. Now that it is autumn
(opposite seasons, remember), crisp winds blow up from the south and the foliage is at its height. The markets are
laden with a bountiful harvest and the air is filled with wood smoke from parilla (pa -ree-sha) – excellent steakhouses
that are everywhere. A dinner or lunch consisting of several different cuts of beef (all natural grass fed and
delicious) sausage, sweetbreads, grilled vegetables, a liter of beer and a snifter of grappa to finish it off will run
about $7 – less than the price of a sandwich in New York. By the way, Uruguay has 36 million head of cattle and only 3
million people.
Walk off your feast, exploring the city on foot. Beautiful old beaux-arts and colonial buildings are everywhere – the
most famous being the Palacio Salvo – one of South America’s early
skyscrapers built in 1928. The port area is picturesque and great for antiquing. The Ramblas are a series of long
seaside boulevards that runs for miles along the Rio Plata – the world’s widest river mouth (Buenos Aires sits on the
other side, about 100 miles away), emptying into the South Atlantic.
Montevideo is a great side trip for those visiting BA – it is a 20-minute flight from Aeroparque or a 4-hour hydrofoil
ride across the Rio Plata.