A review by traveller55 on Punta del Este

Punta del Este: just a beauty
Author's product rating:

Value for Money Excellent
Shopping Good
Nightlife Excellent
Ease of getting around Excellent
Family Friendly Good

Advantages: thousands
Disadvantages: it is a litlle (? ! ! ! ?) faraway

Recommend to potential buyers: yes

Full review
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Punta del Este is the holiday resort more exclusive of the whole South America. Businessmen from Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela as well United States of America select Punta del Este as location for their holidays house. Here come also singers, sport stars, actor and actress.

The name of this resort says itself that the town is located on the point more eastern of Uruguay.
To reach Punta del Este you should first of all fly to Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay and the drive for about one hour along a very beautiful scenic road that pass through woods, follows the coast of the Atlantic ocean, climbs the surrounding hills.

Despite the development of hotels and tourist structures in accordance with the USA style, Punta del Este keeps her fascination of a city of seamen established by European immigrants, most of them where from Italy.

In 1906 the inhabitants of a small settlement asked to the President of the Republic of Uruguay the creation of a town; the petition was accepted and rendered official with a Presidential decree on 5 July 1907.
Punta del Este was born.


I think I already said (in other reviews) that I'm not a beach lover and consequently all my visits to Punta del Este were based on the discovery of the historical, artistic and natural beauties of the resort area.


Punta del Este is located at the antipodes of our continent (Europe) and the best time to visit her is between middle of December and middle of March when the average temperature is 28°C and the winds coming from the Atlantic are mild. Anyhow also during the other months of the year the average temperature never goes below 18/20°C and the rainfall are moderate.

One of the main attractions of the area is "Ruta Panorámica" (scenic route), a road that pass through "Sierra de la Ballena" (Range of Whale, a mountain system located between Montevideo and the Atlantic ocean) and bring you from the Montevideo plain to the beaches of Punta del Este through different views.
On the highest point of Sierra de la Ballena, 2491 meters above seal level, is located the lighthouse "Juan Diaz de Solis" and from this point you have a breathtaking view from the rock coast to the "Maldonado" bay, from the "Solanas" beach to the "Sierra de las Animas" with the "Pan de Azúcar" peak.

At kilometre 10 of the Ruta Panoramica we can visit the "Grutas de la Ballena" (Caves of Whale) with their rocky formations of different shapes as a result of the corroding action of the water of the stream that cross the caves. A sight that you will never forget.

Within Sierra de la Ballena there is "Casa Pueblo" a creation of the painter and sculptor Uruguayan Carlos Páez Vilaró. It is a complex of houses in Spanish style and inside there the Vilaró studio and several show rooms with paintings, statues and other sculpture works, potteries of this artist. Sometime the complex is used for exhibitions, conferences and concerts.
Inside the complex there is also a very beautiful and interesting hotel where I have been a guest several times. The rooms are in effect several small independent cottages located on the slope of the mountain. They are white, single floor constructions with green shutters and with every up-to-date facilities (i.e. Jacuzzi inside and small pool just outside the door). It is a unique experience that I wish everybody of you can, one day, try: wake-up in the morning after a very relaxing sleeping night, open the shutters and see the blue of the sky gets mixed-up with the one of the ocean that smashes its waves against the rocky coast placed some hundreds meters below you.
The hotel has also a small restaurant run by a family where you can try the true Uruguayan dishes.

Leaving the Ruta Panorámica a road gets us to a two hundreds hectares wood called "Arboreo Lussich" from the name of its maker, an Italian from Trieste immigrant. This a place that requires your capacity and resistance to walk around for at least two hours as this is the only way to see more than four hundreds different species of trees coming from all around the world. This wood is the seventh in the world for extension and beauty.
In the wood there is the "Casona Rosada" (Pink Big House) which names is given by the pink colour of its facades. In the past was home for Lussich, his wife and his seven daughters. Now is the home of the "Museo del Azulejo" (museum of tiles) with its very impressive and beautiful collection of ceramic tiles from every country of our world. Many tiles are dated 19th century and some others are from the French town of Desvres.

To complete our visit to Sierra de la Ballena we should reach "Laguna del Sauce" a wide lake on which shores are elegant villas and gardens that are belong to south American singers and sport stars.
The lake is a place for sailing, rowing, water skiing, as well as simply fishing.
Laguna del Sauce is linked with the Atlantic by the brook called "El Potremo" that reaches the ocean near the "Playa Chiguagua", the only beach where nudism is allowed.

Punta del Este has the best beaches of the whole south America Atlantic coastline (they are better than Copacabana or Ipanema in Brazil). The sand is white, thin and sometime phosphorescent.
The coast id divided in two categories: "Brava" is called the one facing the ocean, "Mansa" the one on the Rio de la Plata estuary.

Two are the beaches most interesting.
"Playa Solanas" is just at the foot of Sierra de la Ballena and it is characterized by dense sand, smooth and not deep waters, in other words the right place for the ones that like sun tanning in a quiet surrounding.
Instead "Playa Montoya" has grainy sands, it is home for beach-volley and is also an heaven for surfers.

And, of course, we can't leave Punta del Este without a visit to few of its museums.
"Museo Mazzoni" is located in a 18th century building that was belong to an Italian immigrant nobleman, Don Francisco Mazzoni. The museum has several collections that tell the story of the region; it has also a good collection of paintings.
We are in a seamen town and consequently there is a "Museo del Mar", located at "Barra de Maldonado". The museum display a collection of more than ten thousands specimen of marine fauna originated from all around the world: seahorses, corals, crustaceans, whale teeth, turtle shells, shark jaws. And also a large aquarium and a photographic display that shows the develop of Punta del Este from its birth to now days.


I know that Punta del Este is to faraway and that it could be quite expensive going there but instead to take a couple of trips per year going to places like Sharm, Hurgada, Ibiza, Tenerife, Palma de Mallorca or may be Brazil or Thailand why don't stay home for a couple of years saving money and then go there for two or three unforgettable weeks? May be staying at the hotel of Casa Pueblo.