Colonia del Sacramento was founded by the Portuguese in 1680 for the specific purpose of smuggling goods past the Spanish, who had the Rio de la Plata to themselves and intended to keep it. It changed hands between the two crowns repeatedly over the next century, and the result is a small walled quarter where Portuguese and Spanish street patterns sit side by side, which is exactly why UNESCO inscribed it in 1995.
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IT IS AN HOUR BY FAST FERRY FROM BUENOS AIRES, which makes it the busiest day-trip destination in Uruguay and shapes everything about visiting. Between about eleven and five the Barrio Historico is full, the restaurants are at capacity and the cobbled lanes have a queue for every photograph. AFTER THE LAST FERRY LEAVES IT EMPTIES ALMOST COMPLETELY, and the quarter at dusk with the swallows over the lighthouse and nobody in it is a different place entirely. THE SINGLE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE IN THIS POST IS TO STAY A NIGHT. Our Uruguay travel guide for women covers the country.
THE QUARTER IS SMALL AND THAT IS NOT A CRITICISM. You can walk the whole Barrio Historico in twenty minutes and spend a day doing it properly: the cobbles, the 1920s cars left artfully rusting against the walls, the plane trees, the ruined convent with a lighthouse built on it, the river beach and the sunset, which faces west over water and is the best in Uruguay.
WHAT IT IS NOT IS A BEACH DESTINATION, and people arrive expecting one. This is the RIO DE LA PLATA, the widest river in the world, and the water here is brown with sediment rather than blue. There is a pleasant river beach and the swimming is not the point. For that, the coast east of Montevideo is where Uruguayans go.
The Barrio Historico, the Lighthouse and the Cars
Two street grids, a street of sighs, a lighthouse on a convent, and the best sunset in the country.
THE BARRIO HISTORICO is the UNESCO-inscribed quarter and the whole reason to come, and the thing to notice is the street plan. The PORTUGUESE streets follow the topography and are irregular and cobbled with uneven stone; the SPANISH streets, laid out after they took the town, are straight and on a grid. You can see the join. That contrast is literally what the inscription is for.
THE CALLE DE LOS SUSPIROS, the street of sighs, is the single most photographed street in Uruguay: a short, steeply cambered lane of rough cobbles and low colonial houses running down towards the river. The name's origins are disputed and the competing stories involve condemned prisoners, drowned sailors and a brothel, which tells you something about how histories get made.
THE PORTON DE CAMPO, the restored 1745 city gate with its wooden drawbridge, is where the walled town began, and a stretch of the original bastion walls runs beside it.
THE FARO, the lighthouse, is built on the ruins of the seventeenth-century CONVENTO DE SAN FRANCISCO and you can climb it for a small fee. The stairs are tight and steep and the view over the terracotta roofs, the river and the whole quarter is the orienting moment of a visit.
THE PLAZA MAYOR is the heart of it, with the MUSEO PORTUGUES, the MUSEO MUNICIPAL and several other small museums around the quarter covered by a single combined ticket, which is the efficient way to do them. The BASILICA DEL SANTISIMO SACRAMENTO on Plaza de Armas is among the oldest churches in Uruguay.
THE VINTAGE CARS are a real feature rather than a prop, mostly 1920s and 1930s, some running and many permanently parked against walls and overgrown with ivy, and several have been converted into cafes or planters. They are the most photographed object in town after the street.
THE RAMBLA COSTANERA runs along the river for several kilometres and is where the town watches the sun go down. BECAUSE THE RIVER IS TO THE WEST HERE, Colonia gets a sunset over water that Montevideo, facing south, does not.
REAL DE SAN CARLOS, a few kilometres north, is the strangest thing in the area: the ruins of an enormous entertainment complex built by an Argentine entrepreneur in the early 1900s, with a BULLRING that held ten thousand people and was used for exactly two years before Uruguay banned bullfighting in 1912. It is derelict, fenced and visible, and the scale of the folly is remarkable.
CARMELO, an hour north west, is the nearest wine country and makes a good half day.
NEARBY: Montevideo is two and a half to three hours east by road, and Buenos Aires is an hour across the river.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Getting There and Getting Around
An hour from Buenos Aires, and both countries' border controls happen before you board.
The ferry from Buenos Aires is an international border crossing and both countries' controls are done before you board. That is the practical thing to know, because it means arriving at the terminal well before departure rather than at a ferry-shaped margin: you clear Argentine exit and Uruguayan entry side by side at the departure terminal, then walk onto the boat and off it with nothing further to do. Buquebus and the smaller operators run the routes. THE TWO CHOICES ARE THE DIRECT CROSSING TO MONTEVIDEO, a little over two hours on the fast ferry and longer on the conventional one, AND THE SHORT CROSSING TO COLONIA DEL SACRAMENTO, about an hour and a quarter, with a connecting coach to Montevideo of two and a half to three hours. The Colonia route is usually cheaper and it is the better trip, because it delivers you into the UNESCO quarter rather than into a city terminal. Book ahead in January, take your passport, and note that fares vary enormously with how far in advance you buy.
FOR COLONIA SPECIFICALLY the ferry terminal is a FIVE MINUTE WALK from the Barrio Historico, which is unusual and excellent: you step off the boat and you are essentially there. That is the reason the day-trip traffic works and the reason the town fills and empties on the ferry timetable.
FROM MONTEVIDEO it is about 180km west, two and a half to three hours by frequent coach from the Tres Cruces terminal, and the bus station in Colonia is a short walk from the old town.
IN TOWN YOU WALK. The historic quarter is a few hundred metres across and cars are restricted in parts of it. GOLF BUGGIES AND SCOOTERS are rented everywhere and are genuinely useful for Real de San Carlos and the rambla rather than for the quarter itself, where they are a nuisance. Bicycles are the better choice.
IF YOU ARE DRIVING, the FCDO's named Uruguayan risk is theft from parked cars, so use a paid car park and leave nothing visible, which applies as much in a quiet town as in Montevideo.
When to Go
October to April, and come on a weekday if you possibly can.
COLONIA IS AT THE SAME LATITUDE AS BUENOS AIRES and the seasons are inverted. Summer, DECEMBER TO FEBRUARY, runs 25 to 30C and is the busiest; the quarter in January with three ferries' worth of visitors in it is hard work.
OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, MARCH AND APRIL ARE THE BEST MONTHS: 18 to 25C, everything open, and noticeably fewer people. Spring has the plane trees coming into leaf and autumn has them turning, and the quarter photographs best in both.
WINTER, JUNE TO AUGUST, is 10 to 15C, grey, damp and windy off the river, with short days and some places closed. It is also beautiful and nearly empty, and the restaurants that stay open are full of locals. Bring a proper coat; the wind off the Plata is colder than the thermometer.
THE DAY OF THE WEEK MATTERS MORE THAN THE MONTH, which is the planning point. The ferries run heaviest at weekends and the quarter is busiest on a Saturday. A TUESDAY IN NOVEMBER IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TOWN FROM A SATURDAY IN JANUARY. And whichever day you come, the hours after about six in the evening are when you get the place to yourself, which is the argument for sleeping here.
SEMANA DE TURISMO, the week containing Easter, brings a domestic rush and is worth booking around.
Is Colonia del Sacramento Safe for Women Travelers
About as safe as travel gets, and the hazard is the cobbles.
US State Department travel advisory: the Uruguay advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/uruguay, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
UK FCDO: Uruguay has NO advised-against areas anywhere, and there is no FCDO regional-risks page for it at all, which only a handful of countries in this library can say. On terrorism the advice is that although there is no recent history of terrorism in Uruguay, attacks cannot be ruled out, which is the mildest wording the FCDO uses. WHAT IT DOES WARN ABOUT IS STREET CRIME IN MONTEVIDEO, SPECIFICALLY AND ONLY: bag-snatching and pickpocketing, and mugging and robbery that is SOMETIMES ARMED. Its instructions are concrete. Keep valuables, spare cash and cards in a safe; use ATMs that are NOT on the street, preferring machines inside shopping centres and banks; do not carry a lot of cash or wear expensive jewellery; carry cash and cards in separate pockets. And the geographic one, which is the most useful sentence on the page: keep away from isolated or poorly lit areas at night and AVOID WALKING DOWNTOWN OR IN THE PORT AREA ALONE, ESPECIALLY AT NIGHT AND AT WEEKENDS. THEFT FROM CARS IS A SEPARATE NAMED RISK and the FCDO says criminals REGULARLY break into cars left on the street, that you should park in paid car parks or busy well-lit areas, and that thieves smash windows and grab valuables AT TRAFFIC LIGHTS AND JUNCTIONS, so nothing should be visible on a seat. On the rest of the country it is explicit that CRIME RATES ARE GENERALLY LOWER OUTSIDE MONTEVIDEO while usual precautions still apply.
ALMOST NONE OF THAT REACHES COLONIA, and the advisory says so itself: CRIME RATES ARE GENERALLY LOWER OUTSIDE MONTEVIDEO. Every street-crime warning the FCDO gives for Uruguay is about Montevideo's downtown and port area, 180 kilometres east. Uruguay has NO advised-against areas anywhere and NO FCDO regional-risks page at all, which only a handful of countries in this library can say. Colonia is a small, prosperous, heavily visited town where a woman walking the quarter alone at ten at night is doing an unremarkable thing.
WHAT DOES TRANSFER IS THE PROPERTY ADVICE IN TWO FORMS. THEFT FROM PARKED CARS is the FCDO's named Uruguayan risk and applies here as anywhere, so use a paid car park. AND OPPORTUNIST THEFT IN A CROWD is the day-tripper version: the Calle de los Suspiros at two in the afternoon in January is a dense slow-moving crowd of distracted people holding phones, which is the one environment in this town where a bag that closes matters.
THE COBBLES ARE THE REAL HAZARD AND THIS IS NOT A JOKE. The Portuguese streets of the Barrio Historico are original rough stone, deliberately uneven, steeply cambered towards drainage channels in the middle, and polished smooth in places by three centuries of feet. They are genuinely slippery when wet, and the most common injury in Colonia is a turned ankle or a fall. ANYTHING WITH A HEEL IS A BAD IDEA HERE, and that includes a low block heel; the stones are far enough apart to catch one. The lighthouse stairs are tight, steep and worn, with a low door at the top.
Uruguay's social record is the reason it feels different from its neighbours, and it is much older than people assume. Divorce at a woman's request has been legal since 1913. Church and state were separated in 1917, so thoroughly that the public holidays were renamed and still carry the secular names: Christmas is the DIA DE LA FAMILIA, Easter week is the SEMANA DE TURISMO, and Epiphany is the Day of the Children. Women voted in Uruguay before they voted in most of Europe. The welfare state, free education through university, and the eight-hour day all date from the Batlle governments of the early twentieth century, which is why the country was being called the Switzerland of South America a hundred years ago. MORE RECENTLY: same-sex marriage has been legal since 2013, abortion in the first trimester since 2012, and Uruguay gave a laptop to every state schoolchild from 2007, the first country in the world to do it nationwide. It generates the large majority of its electricity from renewables, mostly wind and hydro. It is consistently ranked the strongest democracy and the least corrupt country in Latin America. NONE OF THAT MAKES IT CRIME-FREE, and it is worth being precise rather than romantic: Uruguay's homicide rate has risen over the past decade and is not the lowest in South America. What the record does mean is a stable, institutionally solid, socially liberal country where a woman travelling alone is unremarkable and where the risk she actually faces is opportunist theft in one city's downtown, which is what the FCDO advice says.
The FCDO's paragraph on Uruguay is the most positive it writes about any country in Latin America. Same-sex marriage is legal, same-sex civil unions are recognised, there are anti-discrimination laws, it is common to see same-sex couples together in public, and hostility or discrimination towards LGBT+ visitors is RARE. Montevideo holds one of the continent's larger Pride marches, and Punta del Este has a visible gay scene in season.
Uruguay legalised cannabis in 2013, the first country in the world to do so, and IT IS STILL ILLEGAL FOR TOURISTS. This is the single most misunderstood fact about the country. The FCDO states it plainly: Uruguayan nationals and foreign nationals who have been RESIDENT FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS may grow cannabis or buy it from registered pharmacies IF they have registered with the government, and it is illegal for tourists to do either. The law was written to take the trade away from criminal suppliers for people who live here, not to create a destination for people who do not. A visitor who buys on the street is buying illegally from the market the law exists to displace. SMOKING IS SEPARATELY AND STRICTLY RESTRICTED: it is illegal to smoke, INCLUDING E-CIGARETTES, in enclosed public places such as restaurants, shopping centres and cinemas. Uruguay was the first country in the Americas to go smoke-free indoors and it enforces it.
Uruguay has no reciprocal health agreement with the UK or the United States, and the FCDO is unusually blunt about the consequence: MEDICAL AND DENTAL TREATMENT IS EXPENSIVE IN URUGUAY, so travel health insurance with cover for treatment AND REPATRIATION, plus accessible funds, is essential rather than advisable. Standards in Montevideo are good and the city is a regional medical destination; provision thins outside it, and the FCDO publishes a list of medical providers in Uruguay where some staff speak English. TWO PHARMACY RULES CATCH PEOPLE OUT. You need a prescription from a LOCAL doctor to get prescribed medication, a foreign prescription will not do, and ALL medication in a pharmacy, prescribed or not, is kept BEHIND THE COUNTER and must be asked for, so there is nothing to browse. Bring enough of anything you take regularly, because medicine for complex treatment may simply be unavailable in smaller towns. The named health risks are DENGUE and STRONG SUN WITH HIGH UV LEVELS. Tap water in Uruguay is generally safe to drink, which is not true of most of the continent.
THE RIVER RATHER THAN THE SEA. Colonia's beaches are river beaches on the Rio de la Plata: shallow, brown with sediment, and lifeguarded only in the summer season if at all. The water quality varies with the wind and the river, so ask locally, and note that the FCDO's drowning warning for Uruguay covers rivers explicitly. THERE ARE NO ATLANTIC RIPS HERE, which is the one way this is easier than the Uruguayan coast proper, but a wide shallow river with wind across it produces its own currents.
Socially Uruguayans are reserved, courteous and slow to start a conversation, and Colonia is a tourism town where English is more widely spoken than in most of the country. A woman alone eating dinner, walking the rambla at sunset or taking the ferry is completely ordinary. The one practical note is that the town is VERY QUIET AFTER ABOUT TEN, so the streets are empty rather than threatening, and some of the quarter is unlit.
The Colonia del Sacramento Packing List
Flat shoes with grip, which is the top of this list for a reason
Walking shoes with a proper sole and no heel at all. The Barrio Historico is original seventeenth and eighteenth century cobble, uneven by design, cambered towards the middle and polished slippery in places, and a turned ankle is the commonest thing that goes wrong in this town. This is the one item that changes your day.
A rain jacket, because the river weather arrives sideways
A packable rain jacket. Uruguay has no dry season and rain is possible in every month, and the value of the shell here is the wind off the Plata as much as the water: a wide river produces a wind that makes an umbrella useless.
A merino layer, because the wind decides the temperature
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the right first layer here for a specific reason: this is a town on the edge of an enormous body of water, so the air temperature is decided by whether the wind is blowing rather than by the sun. A 26C November afternoon in the lee of a wall becomes a 16C evening on the rambla watching the sunset, which is the thing you came for and the moment you will be cold. Merino covers both in one garment and stays fresh across a short trip.
Sun protection, because the quarter has less shade than it looks
A wide brim sun hat and a long sleeve sun hoodie. The plane trees shade the Spanish streets and the Portuguese ones, the rambla and the plazas are open, and southern-hemisphere summer sun off pale stone and water is stronger than the mild temperature suggests.
Water
An insulated water bottle. Uruguayan tap water is safe to drink, which is not true of most of the continent and saves both money and plastic in a town where everything is a short walk.
A quick-dry towel
A quick dry travel towel, which earns its place if you intend the river beach or are moving on to the Atlantic coast, and many apartments and hostels here do not supply a beach towel.
The small things
A bag that closes and sits in front of you for the crowded middle of the day, which is the only time this town has a pickpocketing environment. Cash in Uruguayan pesos, though Colonia is card-friendly, and note that ARGENTINE PESOS AND US DOLLARS are often accepted here because of the ferry traffic, usually at a poor rate. PAY FOR ACCOMMODATION WITH A FOREIGN-ISSUED CARD, because Uruguay's VAT refund for non-residents is applied automatically at the point of payment and the terms have changed more than once, so ask your hotel rather than trusting a figure. Your passport, because the ferry is an international crossing. A 220V adapter covering type C, F, I and L. Sunglasses. And a thermos and gourd if you want to do the most Uruguayan thing available, which is to sit on the rambla at seven with mate while the sun goes down over Argentina.
Essential Resources for Women in Colonia del Sacramento
Emergency numbers: 911 reaches the police anywhere in Uruguay. 104 is the fire service and 105 the public emergency medical service. English is less widely spoken by emergency operators than in Europe, so if you are staying somewhere with a reception desk, calling them first is often faster in practice.
Police and support: Colonia is a departmental capital with a full police presence and a visible, unintimidating one in the historic quarter, which is heavily policed because of the visitor numbers. You will need a written report, a denuncia, for any insurance claim. Uruguay runs a free, confidential, 24-hour national line for violence against women on 0800 7272 through its women's institute, InMujeres, which is the dedicated service rather than a general police counter.
Main hospital or clinic: Colonia has a departmental hospital, the Hospital de Colonia, and private sanatoriums in the town, which is more capacity than a town of 27,000 would usually carry because it is a departmental capital. ANYTHING SERIOUS GOES TO MONTEVIDEO, two and a half to three hours east, where the specialist care is. A farmacia handles minor problems with a night rota posted in the window, and remember that a LOCAL prescription is needed for prescribed medicine and that pharmacy stock is kept behind the counter. ONE PRACTICAL POINT SPECIFIC TO COLONIA: if you are on a day trip from Buenos Aires and something happens, you are in a different country from your accommodation and your onward ferry, so travel insurance and your passport matter more than the short distance suggests.
Official health authority: the Uruguayan Ministry of Public Health. There is no reciprocal health agreement, and the FCDO states plainly that medical and dental treatment in Uruguay is expensive, so insurance covering treatment and repatriation is essential. Colonia has a departmental hospital and anything serious goes to Montevideo, two and a half to three hours east. Note that a local prescription is required for prescribed medicine and that all pharmacy stock is kept behind the counter
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Montevideo.
Official tourism authority: the Uruguayan Ministry of Tourism. And the Colonia departmental tourism office beside the Portón de Campo, which sells the combined museum ticket covering the quarter's small museums and publishes the lighthouse hours, plus the ferry operators' own sites for the Buenos Aires crossing, where the fare varies enormously with how far ahead you book
Stay a night. The quarter empties when the last ferry leaves and becomes a completely different place.
The ferry is an international border crossing and both countries' controls are done at the departure terminal before you board.
No heels, at all. The cobbles are original, uneven by design and polished slippery, and a turned ankle is the commonest injury here.
Solo women safety assessment: Colonia del Sacramento is about as safe as travel gets and is an excellent place to be alone. Uruguay has NO advised-against areas anywhere and NO FCDO regional-risks page at all, and the FCDO states explicitly that crime rates are generally lower outside Montevideo, where every one of its street-crime warnings is located, 180km east. This is a prosperous, heavily policed, heavily visited departmental capital where a woman walking the quarter alone in the evening is unremarkable and street harassment is low by regional standards. WHAT TRANSFERS IS PROPERTY CRIME IN TWO FORMS: theft from parked cars, which is the FCDO's named Uruguayan risk, so use a paid car park and leave nothing visible; and opportunist theft in the middle of the day, because the Calle de los Suspiros in January is a dense slow crowd of distracted people holding phones, which is the one pickpocketing environment the town has. THE REAL HAZARD IS THE GROUND. The Barrio Historico is original seventeenth-century cobble, uneven by design, cambered to a central drainage channel and polished smooth in places, genuinely slippery wet, and a turned ankle or a fall is the commonest thing that goes wrong; anything with a heel, including a low one, is a bad idea. The lighthouse stairs are tight, steep and worn. The river beaches are shallow and brown with sediment rather than dangerous, lifeguarded only in season if at all, and the FCDO's drowning warning covers rivers explicitly. The town is very quiet after ten and parts of the quarter are unlit, which is emptiness rather than threat. On the law, cannabis is legal for registered residents of two years or more and ILLEGAL FOR TOURISTS, and indoor smoking including e-cigarettes is banned. If you are here on a day trip you are in a different country from your bed, so carry your passport and have insurance. 911 for police, 0800 7272 for the national women's violence line.
Reading On
Start with the Uruguay travel guide for women, which covers the ferry, the costs, the social history and the rest of the country. The essential companions are the Montevideo packing list, two and a half hours east and the one place in Uruguay the advisory does warn about, and the Punta del Este packing list for the Atlantic coast, which is a completely different proposition from this river town. Across the water, the Buenos Aires packing list is an hour away and is where most visitors come from, with the Argentina travel guide for women for that side. For other colonial quarters in the region, the Cartagena packing list and the Trinidad packing list. For why merino rather than cotton where the wind off a very wide river decides the temperature, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
