Colonia del Sacramento: City Overview
Department (Province): Colonia
City: Colonia del Sacramento
Place: City Overview
Since the portuguese and the spanish arrived to the New World, the Río de la Plata was one of the most strategic places of the Americas because of the commercial routes who started at the inland towns and the transportation of resources, from food and spices to gold and other metals. On the period when the portuguese and the spanish divided the land onto two parts, the area between what today is Uruguay and South Brazil was actually the changing limits of both empires. The portuguese expansion went to the doors of what today is Argentina and founded Nova Colônia do Santíssimo Sacramento. From that period still remain the ruins of the Convento San Francisco Javier and some parts of the walls and the old canons. On the 18th Century, after several battles between both empires, the Spanish Crown took the town and kept it till the english landed at the beginning of the 19th Century. A few years later, Colonia del Sacramento would become the oldest town of the new Republic of Uruguay. This city looks nowadays like the old medieval and renaissance areas of the western european cities. From the urban point of view, it’s quite weird for an argentine citizen to see the layout of the streets, clearly not following the spanish grid system, and with the big amount of passageways. Its biggest attraction today is the Lighthouse and most of the tourists come from Argentina, since the town itself is just one hour away from Buenos Aires on ferry.
