Montevideo, Uruguay

March 6^th, 2024

Uruguay today. A whole new country for us. Very exciting.

We had booked a private tour, and as soon as the ship had docked and it was safe to go ashore, we headed down the gangway onto the pier. There is no cruise terminal, and it is a short walk to the end of the pier. At the end of the pier there is a taxi stand and a small café, and guides holding up signs for tour buses, but no sign of our tour bus.

It seems that that is not the exit to the port. We had to cross a busy road and walk a couple of blocks to get to the port gate and there was our guide, Natalia, holding up a sign. We had to wait a while for other guests on the tour, they too had been confused by where the port exit actually was.

We had booked a city tour of Montevideo, and the tour was exactly as described.

Our first stop was at Independence Square.

At the entrance to the square is a rectangular arch, if an arch can be called rectangular. It is the Puerta de la Ciudadela, which is one of the few remaining parts of the wall that surrounded the oldest part of the city of Montevideo, the citadel, which was torn down in 1829. This drawbridge over a moat was built in 1745 as the only entrance to the city.

Nearby there was a group of protesters, but Natalia seemed reluctant to talk about what they were protesting, and instead extolled the excellence of the Uruguay political system. She showed us the original presidential palace,

And then the new one, with its transparent walls. She explained that it was transparent because the government has nothing to hide, and transparency is very important to them. If it works, that would be amazing. There are several countries that I can think of which need to add a bit of transparency.

In the middle of the square is a statue of the founder of Uruguay, General José Gervasio Artigas, naturally on a horse.

Below the statue is his mausoleum. Our guide explained Uruguay’s long and convoluted history, with great pride that the small country had been able to maintain its independence. This was all very interesting, especially as all that I knew about Uruguay previously was the Battle of the River Plate, the Andes plane crash of the rugby team, and that the country was the source of that awful Fray Bentos canned meat.

Also around the square was the Palacio Salvo, originally owned by the Salvo family of department store fame. It was the tallest building in Latin America for a brief period. The building is designed to remind us of Dante’s Inferno. The bottom floors are black, like hell. The middle floors are purgatory, and the tower is heaven with a lighthouse on top. Hmmm, all rather strange I think.

Next to the square is the very lovely Teatro Solis . Music and culture are very important to the Uruguayans, and there are free concerts so that everyone can experience the theater. I wish we could do more of that in the US. It’s great to see a country that truly supports the arts.

Our next stop was at the market, which was a lovely building built from British steel in the early 1900s, and still looking great.

It was the perfect spot to stop for a snacks,

and I couldn’t resist this photo for my friend Betsy.

They even had a great pet food stand!

We took a brief look at La Carreta, a bronze sculpture honoring the ox wagon transport that was so important to the history of the country

Then we stopped at the coast. There are miles and miles of beautiful beaches, lined with fancy apartment buildings and parks.

And of course, the iconic Montevideo sign.

There are interesting old and new buildings

Our final stop was at the navy memorial

We ended our tour at the market at the port, where there were several wonderful looking barbecue restaurants. It was very crowded, so we decided to come back later

and walked past the sidewalk cafes back to the ship.

Well, we never got to go back to sample the barbecue restaurants because I wanted to catch up with some work issues once back on the ship, and the next thing we knew, it was sail away time. No delay in sailing this time unfortunately, so we never got to sample that delicious looking meat.

We sailed out of the port past the naval headquarters and navy ships,

containers.

And a selection of sunken vessels. One wonders what happened to these ships. Hopefully we will not meet the same fate.

We watched Montevideo and the coastline fade away into the distance.

We had had a great time here in yet another beautiful South American city. I was just sorry that we missed out on all of that meat at the port market.

Tonight we dined in the Santa Fe restaurant. Sapphire Princess does not have large main restaurant, but has 4 smaller dining rooms, all serving the same food. It is an interesting concept. While you don’t get the wow effect of a Cunard Britannia restaurant, it does feel more intimate and much quieter. The tables aren’t as close together as they are on the Balmoral, and it has more of a shore side restaurant feel.

With Princess anytime dining you can just show up at a restaurant and wait for a table, or as we did, you can book in advance. I hate waiting in line for a table, so with the advanced booking you just show up.

I had hoped that the Santa Fe restaurant may have at least one Southwestern style dish, but the menu is identical to the other 3 main restaurants, the only difference is the change of décor.

So far the food has been OK. Better than some ships, worse than others. There is always a wide range of offerings on the menu, so choice is there, but the actual food isn’t always quite what you expected. Still, the wait staff are friendly, and the atmosphere in the restaurants is great, additionally  any meal I don’t have to cook is a plus, so I really have no complaints.

We have been choosing to dine at 8:00 as this works out well with predinner drinks and getting to the late show which is at 9:30.

Tonight’s show was a magician/comedian. He was quite good, but really had a problem engaging the audience. I think this was mainly due to the fact that although many of the passengers are American or British, there is a very large contingent of other nationalities on board. All of the announcements are made in English and Spanish, which makes sense as we are sailing around South America, and there are many South Americans on board. However, there are also passengers from Asia and the rest of Europe, making for a very international group, and I just don’t think that the magician’s comedy really worked in this situation. I felt bad for him.

We have had very calm seas. You can hardly feel the ship moving at all. I was a bit worried about motion as we are so close to the front of the ship, but there was no motion to rock me to sleep tonight.