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Uruguay

Uruguay

Bec
2004-09-17 12:09:50

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perched on his mausoleum in the center of the plaza is José Gervasio Artigas who fought the Spanish in 1811 and participated in liberating the region from Brazil in 1925.

Directly facing Artigas is central Montevideo's main thoroughfare, Avenida 18 de Julio.

Palacio Estévez on the south side of the Plaza Independencia was the government house until 1985.

Another public building of great importance is Uruguay's Central Bank, focus of the 2002 crisis.

I had the good fortune to have an Internet correspondent in Montevideo, Rosina Bartesaghi who showed me around with her husband Diego Urcota, both professionals in the financial world. We met for lunch at the famous Mercado del Puerto next to the Customs Building (with the tower), in the old city.

Plaza Fabini on Avenida 18 de Julio offers a perspective up the diagonal Avenida Libertador General Lavalleja that leads up to the Palacio Legislativo. The fountain and sculpture "El Entrevero" by José Belloni is so famous that some guide books call Plaza Fabini, Plaza Entrevero.

Here is the impressive 1908 Palacio Legislativo mentioned above. It is brilliantly lighted at night and looks great from Plaza Fabini.at the other end of Avenida Libertador General Lavalleja

Thanks to Rosina and Diego who drove me around, I can show you this fort on the 132 m Cerro de Montevideo across the bay from the old city.

Modern Montevideo is quite extensive with a population of 1.3 million people (more than a third of the country's 3.4 million). You can see how the white old city across the opening of fine natural harbour is only a small part of it. You can also spot the storage tanks of the country's only oil refinery on the left.

Colonia
A voyage into the past is always pleasant because we choose to see only the quaint architecture and the glory, pageantry and elegance of the powerful while we close our eyes to the terrible reality of abuse of power, of slavery, of common crime and of hopeless disease that were the lot of common man in those days.

This colourful ceremony of changing the guard in Colonia is an example of our selective memory.

Colonia del Sacramento was founded to re-establish Portugal's claim on all lands east of the arbitrary "line of demarcation" drawn by Pope Alexander V in 1493 in competition with Spain that had founded Buenos Aires in 1536, had abandoned it and had just re-founded it in 1680.

The lighthouse shown here and below left was built only in the 19th century as was the church on the right below.

Colonia does look peaceful notwithstanding all the violence and injustice of its past that have now been sanitised.

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