Colonia del Sacramento

Colonia del Sacramento's Barrio Histórico is the most complete surviving ensemble of Portuguese colonial urban planning in the Southern Hemisphere, a small district of cobblestone streets, whitewashed walls and red-tile roofs that sits on a promontory at the mouth of the Río de la Plata facing Buenos Aires across a stretch of water that is nearly a mile wide. The Portuguese founded the city in 1680 as a strategic trading post controlling the river approach to Buenos Aires, and the neighbourhood that grew around the original fortifications has survived substantially intact despite the subsequent Spanish colonial period, Brazilian occupation and more than three centuries of continuous use as a residential district.

The Calle de los Suspiros, the narrow lane that runs along the top of the old city wall, gives onto views across the river to the Argentine shore and is perhaps the most photographed street in Uruguay. The street's name, which translates as Street of Sighs, is either a romantic reference to the prisoners who were once held in the buildings above or a more practical acknowledgment of the wind that funnels through the lane from the river, depending on which guide you believe. The Portuguese Museum in the restored Casa de la Cultura occupies a colonial-period building and contains artefacts recovered from the original settlement including ceramics, navigational instruments and weapons that document the material culture of a Portuguese outpost in the contested borderlands of the Río de la Plata basin.

The town was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995, a recognition that places it in the company of the Historic Centre of Prague, the Alhambra and the medieval city of Rhodes, among many others. The inscription covers the historic district, the Portuguese quarter and the former defensive walls, and the listing was notable for recognising the Portuguese colonial urban typology as distinct from the Spanish grid-planned cities that dominate the rest of Uruguay and the Río de la Plata region. The decision acknowledged that the organic lane pattern, the irregular lot sizes and the mixture of building scales in the Portuguese quarter represented a genuine alternative model of colonial urbanism.

Walking the streets of the Barrio Histórico in the early morning before the day-trippers arrive from Buenos Aires is the experience that most rewards the patient traveller. The light is soft and golden on the orange rooftops at seven in the morning, the cats are still in the doorways and the lighthouse at the tip of the promontory casts a long shadow across the cobblestones. The scale of the place is fully appreciable without the crowds that pack the main avenues in summer, and the contrast between the Portuguese period buildings and the later Spanish colonial additions becomes visible when there is space to look carefully.

The ferry from Buenos Aires now makes the journey that Portuguese ships once made with traded goods, completing a passenger connection across the water that was imagined and fought over for more than two centuries. The crossing takes about an hour and lands passengers in the modern part of Colonia, from where the historic district is a ten-minute walk. The lighthouse at the tip of the promontory dates from 1845 and offers views over the old town and the river from the top of a spiral staircase of twenty-six steps, a charge that seems modest until you reach the top and understand what you have been given.

The Barrio Histórico is the best-preserved Portuguese colonial urban ensemble in the Americas and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Calle de los Suspiros and the views from the old city wall give an immediate sense of the Portuguese colonial experience.

The ferry connection from Buenos Aires makes Colonia an accessible day trip or an ideal first stop in Uruguay.