Colonia day trip: the town itself
Colonia really reminded me of Hoi An in Vietnam. Both are Unesco World Heritage sites, both are by the water, both have low, historic buildings, both have tourist-to-local ratios of 10:1. And Colonia had an even sleepier, slower-paced feel than Hoi An.
There are no stoplights in this town. I only saw one intersection where police were guiding traffic. The streets are lined with sycamore trees.
On the City Tour that came with my day trip package, we learned about the history of Uruguay (literally means "bird of the river") and Colonia, which was alternately claimed by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Spanish style buildings tended to be white, with flat roofs, and made of brick like the one on the left. Portuguese buildings tended to be colorful, with pitched roofs for water drainage, and made with stone like the one on the right.
Spanish style streets are also arced in the middle, draining to the sides and with sidewalks like the picture below. Portuguese streets dipped in the middle to drain water down the middle, and didn't have sidewalks.
In my free time, I was able to visit the museums in Colonia (US$2-3 depending on if you use Uruguayan pesos or Argentinian pesos, one ticket gets you in all 8). And of course I wanted to try some food. Apparently a common snack food is the "chivito," and steak sandwich which can also come with ham, egg, etc. It sounded really good, but the one I had had really chewy steak, meaning that fork and knife were required to cut into bite size chunks. And the juices from the steak made the bread soggy. I much preferred the fresh-squeezed orange juice I had with it.
