The colonial quarter of this city of just under 27,000 is s one of this country’s oldest settlements, founded on a peninsula in 1680 not by Spaniards but by Portuguese settlers, then switching back and forth between Portugal and Spain, then independent Brazil, before finally becoming part of Uruguay. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it can be reached via 2½-hour drive from Uruguay’s capital Montevideo as well as from Buenos Aires with a comfy, high-speed ferry ride away across the wide, murky Río Plata (one to three hours, depending on the ship).

Read all about it in my Tripatini post here.

(Flc1980)