Saturday February 21, 2015 – Montevideo, Uruguay

Saturday February 21, 2015 – Montevideo, Uruguay

We arrived into Montevideo, Uruguay in the morning and docked at the harbor right near the city.

We took a City Highlights Tour and Silvana was our guide.  She provided a lot of cultural information about Uruguay.   The tour bus drove us along the waterfront and the ramblas to a viewpoint.  We got to take pictures.

We went to the town square and saw the Presidential buildings and Congress.  We drove to a park where there were tango dancers.  We watched them for a while

The central square in Montevideo, Uruguay

One of the architecturally interesting buildings in Montevideo

One of the many government buildings on the central square

Remains of the old gate into the city at the central square

The Opera House

Beautiful vista of Montevideo and the ramblas from this park

Interesting statues

"Well hung"!  The only bull in the statue

This was the entire statue - quite impressive

 

Memorial statue near the capital

The Congress building in Montevideo

The Uruguayan flag

Tango dancers in the park

Statue to the indigenous people who lived in Uruguay

 

We saw a statue of the indigenous people who used to live in Montevideo.  The settlers gathered them together on the premise of giving them land.  Instead, they slaughtered them all.  The statue had 5 of them left and they were taken to Europe in a “freak show”, but no one knows what happened to them.

We then headed out of town to the Juanico Winery.  We drove around the vineyards and got to taste the grapes right off of the vines.  They gave us a tour of the winery and cellar.  We had tastings along with a charcuterie platter followed by a huge lunch.  It was really good and we had plenty to drink.

The vineyards at Juanico Winery

The vines were covered with grapes

We got to walk in the vineyard and eat grapes off of the vines

Some old tools on display in the winery

Barrels aging in the cellar at Juanico

A display commemorating the history of the Juanico Winery

A yummy charcuterie with wine - then a lot of food arrived.  We were stuffed

The winery

Juanico Winery

 

We returned to the ship late in the afternoon and dressed for dinner.  We had late drinks with Putu and then had dinner in the Polo Grill.  It was good but not spectacular.