Trip to Colonia del Sacramento from Buenos Aires
Summary
Only a roughly 2 hour ferry ride from Buenos Aires, the UNESCO world heritage town of Colonia del Sacramento is worth taking the day trip to explore. Its quite touristy in places, but its quite easy to get away from the crowds and wander through the narrow cobbled streets of Barrio Historico whilst also looking out over the Rio de la Plata that surrounds the peninsular. Check it out if have a free day
highlights
#1 Checking out the Uruguayan Chivito!
#2 Walk back from the bull ring along the waterfront to the old town on a sunny day
#3 Wandering around the old colonial streets and imagining what it must have been like back when it was part of a key smuggling route
Travel Tips
- Ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento – you’ll want to go with one of the two main ferry companies – either Buquebus or Colonia Express Ferries. Pretty similar from what we saw in terms of price, although Buqebus seemed to have more departures. Buquebus departs from Puerto Madero, Colonia Express Ferries from Terminal Internacional de Cruceros on Ave Inmigrantes. Make sure you get to the terminal 30mins before departure as you’ll need to clear customs. Ferry time is around 1 hour 30mins
- There are quite a few restaurants in town, but many are quite touristy and offer only fairly basic food. Although on the plus side you can get your fill of the Uruguayan Chivito! (super tasty steak sandwich) We tried a few places, but none that really stood out. One place which we did like was La Pergola by the waterfront on the western tip which was a nice place on a sunny day to watch the crowds go by and hear the waves hitting
- The Old Bull Ring (Plaza de Toros Real de San Carlos) is around a 10min cab ride outside of town. While the bull ring itself is not really much to write home about (and you can’t get in!), the hour long walk back along the beach on a sunny day is quite nice
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Similar Old Town experiences around the World
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone