Montevideo: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Montevideo was built as a fort to keep the Portuguese out. Spain founded it in 1724 for one reason — the Portuguese had taken Colonia across the river — and the whole old city sat behind walls until 1833, when the citizens voted to pull them down. This walk is the peninsula inside those vanished walls: two hours, flat, and almost everything on it is free.
A short history of Montevideo
Between 1724 and 1726 the Spanish governor Bruno Mauricio de Zabala built a fortress on the peninsula in the estuary of the Río de la Plata to stop the Portuguese. In 1807 the British held the city for several months. In 1828 it became the capital of independent Uruguay, and between 1843 and 1851 it withstood a long siege during the civil war. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries many immigrants arrived from Spain and Italy. In 1930 the city hosted the first football World Cup, for which the Estadio Centenario was built, and Uruguay won it. Today almost half of the country's population lives here.
The ten best sights in Montevideo
1Plaza IndependenciaThe square between the old city and the new, with Artigas on a horse above his own mausoleum, which is underground and open to visitors.
2Palacio SalvoA hundred metres and the tallest building in South America when it opened in 1928. The same architect built the Palacio Barolo in Buenos Aires; the two face each other across the river.
3Puerta de la CiudadelaAll that is left of the city walls, demolished in 1833 by public decision. The stone gate was kept as a doorway into the old city and it still works as one.
4Teatro SolisOpened in 1856 and the oldest theatre in the country. The city bought it in 1937 and it has been publicly owned since, which is why the tickets are affordable.
5Ciudad ViejaThe old city on the peninsula, with banks, bars and a lot of art deco. Busy by day and nearly empty after nine.
6Plaza MatrizThe first square of the city, laid out in 1726, with a fountain from 1871 that marks the arrival of running water. A book market fills it on Saturday.
7The CathedralFrom 1804, and the oldest public building in Montevideo. Uruguay separated church and state in 1919 and renamed the religious holidays; Christmas is officially Family Day.
8CabildoThe colonial town hall from 1804, now the city museum, and the building where Uruguay's first constitution was sworn in 1830.
9Museo Torres GarciaThe painter who drew South America upside down in 1943 and wrote that our north is the south. The drawing is here and it changed how the continent pictures itself.
10Museo GurvichThe work of a Lithuanian-born Jewish painter who came here as a child and joined Torres Garcia's workshop. Small, and on the main square.
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What is an audio walk?
Tours in Montevideo →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Montevideo:
Free walking tours in Montevideo
The Peninsula
Montevideo was built as a fort to keep the Portuguese out. Spain founded it in 1724 for one reason — the Portuguese had taken Colonia across the river — and the whole old city sat behind walls until 1833, when the citizens voted to pull them down. This walk is the peninsula inside those vanished walls: two hours, flat, and almost everything on it is free.
- Plaza Independencia · The square sits exactly where the citadel stood, which is why it is the hinge between the old city and the new. Under the statue of Artigas is his mausoleum, open to the public and guarded; he is the national founder and he spent the last thirty years of his life in exile in Paraguay, refusing to come back.
- Palacio Salvo · A hundred metres high and the tallest building in South America when it opened in 1928. Mario Palanti designed it and also designed the Palacio Barolo in Buenos Aires — the two stand on opposite banks of the same river, and both were meant to carry lighthouses that would signal to each other.
- Puerta de la Ciudadela · All that was kept when the city walls came down in 1833. The decision to demolish them was taken by the new republic on the argument that a city behind walls cannot grow, and the gate was left standing as a door into the past.
- Teatro Solis · Opened in 1856 and the oldest theatre in Uruguay. The city bought it in 1937 and it has been public property ever since, which is the reason a seat here costs what it costs. Caruso and Sarah Bernhardt both performed in it.
- Plaza Matriz · The first square of the city, laid out in 1726, two years after the founding. The fountain in the middle was raised in 1871 to mark the arrival of piped water, which is a thing worth marking: until then the city drank from wells and water carts.
- Mercado del Puerto · The iron hall was made in England and put up here in 1868 as a produce market. It is now entirely grills, and that is the national meal: beef over wood, cut and served without ceremony, with a glass of medio y medio — half still wine, half sparkling.
The Rambla and the Stadium
Montevideo turns its back on nothing: twenty-two kilometres of open promenade run along the whole city, and in the evening most of the population is on it with a thermos under one arm. This route follows the water out of the centre and then turns inland to the stadium where the first World Cup was played and won in 1930. Three hours, or two with one bus.
- Parque Rodo · A park laid out in 1901 with a lake, a small funfair and the national art museum inside it. On Sunday a book market runs along its edge and has done for decades.
- Playa Ramirez · The nearest beach to the centre. The water is brown because the Rio de la Plata carries silt from a basin the size of western Europe, not because of pollution — it is the widest river mouth in the world, two hundred and twenty kilometres across at the ocean.
- Punta Carretas · The lighthouse from 1876 marks the southernmost point of the city, and by convention the point where the river ends and the Atlantic begins. Behind it is a prison turned shopping centre — in 1971 a hundred and six Tupamaro prisoners escaped from it through a tunnel in one night.
- Playa Pocitos · The city beach with towers behind it, and the quarter where most of the middle class lives. Nobody swims before December and everybody walks here all year.
- Estadio Centenario · Built in six months for the first World Cup in July 1930, which Uruguay hosted and won in front of ninety thousand people. FIFA has declared it a historical monument of world football and it is the only stadium in the world with that status.
- Museo del Futbol · Inside the stadium. Uruguay has about three and a half million people and has won the World Cup twice and the Olympic football title twice, and the four stars on the shirt count all four.
The Other Montevideo
Two things that do not appear on a postcard: the drums, and the dictatorship. Candombe came here with enslaved Africans, survived as a street rhythm in two neighbourhoods, and is now on the UNESCO list; the drums go through Barrio Sur and Palermo every Sunday evening and nobody organises it. And between 1973 and 1985 Uruguay held more political prisoners per head of population than any country in the world. Three hours, and Sunday evening is the only time for the first half.
- Barrio Sur · Slavery was abolished in Uruguay in 1842, and the Afro-Uruguayan community that remained was concentrated in two quarters, this and Palermo. In the 1970s the military demolished the conventillos they lived in and moved the families to the edges of the city; the drums kept coming back to these streets anyway.
- Palermo · The other drumming quarter. A candombe line has three drums — chico, repique and piano — and they are tuned by lighting a fire in the street and holding the skins over it, which is why you smell the fire before you hear them.
- Museo del Carnaval · The carnival here runs for forty days, the longest in the world, and its centre is not samba but murga — choirs of men in painted faces singing political satire, judged in a competition that lasts weeks.
- Museo de la Memoria · The dictatorship of 1973 to 1985. About one in every fifty Uruguayans was detained at some point and many more left the country; the official count of the disappeared is around two hundred, small beside Argentina and enormous for a country this size.
- Espacio de Arte Contemporaneo · Contemporary art inside the former Miguelete prison, with some cells left exactly as they were. Free, and the building is doing the talking.
- Palacio Legislativo · Finished in 1925 in marble from nine Uruguayan quarries. This is where the laws came from that made Uruguay the first country in the world to legalise cannabis fully, in 2013, and one of the first in Latin America to separate church from state, in 1919.
Getting to Montevideo and getting around
- Carrasco Airport · Eighteen kilometres east, and the terminal that opened in 2009 is by Rafael Vinoly — a single curved concrete roof three hundred and sixty metres long.
- Tres Cruces · The bus terminal and the only way to reach the rest of the country. Buses to Punta del Este leave every half hour and take two hours.
- Estacion General Artigas · A railway station from 1897 that closed in 2003 and stood empty for twenty years. The trains run from a new station beside it now.
- Port of Montevideo · The deepest natural harbour on this coast, and the reason the Spanish built a fort here in 1724 — to stop the Portuguese doing it first.
Cheap eats in Montevideo
Eight counters where Montevideo eats standing, and three words to know. Chivito is the national sandwich — steak, ham, cheese, bacon, egg and salad in a bun, and it is enormous. Medio y medio is the drink of the port market, half still white wine and half sparkling. And mate is not sold anywhere: everybody carries their own thermos, all day, including on the bus.
- Mercado del Puerto · Open 11 to 5 · lunch only
- Mercado Agricola · Open 8 to 10 every day
- Tristan Narvaja · Sunday 8 to 3
- Mercado de los Artesanos · Closed Sunday
- Ciudad Vieja · Weekdays only
- Pocitos · From 8pm · everything is late
- Punta Carretas Shopping · Open 10 to 10
- Bodega Bouza · Book ahead · closed Monday
Museums in Montevideo
- Museo Torres Garcia · Free · closed Sunday
- Museo Gurvich · Closed Sunday
- Museo de Artes Visuales · Free · closed Monday
- Museo Blanes · Free · closed Monday
- Museo del Futbol · Closed Sunday
- Cabildo · Free · closed Monday
- Museo Zorrilla · Free · closed Monday
Parks and gardens in Montevideo
- The Rambla · Free · the evening is the time
- Parque Rodo · Free · the market is Sunday
- Parque Batlle · Free · open always
- El Prado · Free · the show is in Easter week
- Jardin Botanico · Free · open daily
- Cerro de Montevideo · Bus or taxi · the view is the reason
- Parque Lecocq · Free · closed Monday
Things to do in Montevideo with kids
- Parque Rodo funfair · Afternoons and weekends
- Parque Lecocq · Free · closed Monday
- Playa Pocitos · Free · lifeguards in summer
- Museo del Futbol · Tours daily · closed Sunday
- Mercado Agricola · Open 8 to 10
- Fortaleza del Cerro · Small ticket · closed Monday
- Atlantida · A day trip · buses every hour
Nature and day trips near Montevideo
- Punta del Este · January is full · February is better
- Piriapolis · Ninety minutes east
- Colonia del Sacramento · UNESCO since 2003 · ferries to Buenos Aires
- Santa Lucia wetlands · Best early morning
- Bodega Bouza · Book ahead
- Atlantida · Forty minutes · buses all day
- Parque Lecocq · Free · closed Monday
Live music in Montevideo
- Teatro Solis · Season March to December
- Sala Zitarrosa · Check the week's listings
- Teatro El Galpon · Tickets at the door
- Barrio Sur · Sunday evening
- Palermo · January and February
- Ciudad Vieja · Friday and Saturday
- Estadio Centenario · Tickets go at the ground
Frequently asked questions about Montevideo
What is there to see in Montevideo?
The top sights in Montevideo are Plaza Independencia, Palacio Salvo and Puerta de la Ciudadela. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Montevideo?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Montevideo without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Montevideo?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Montevideo, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The Peninsula.
How do you get to Montevideo and get around?
The main ways are Carrasco Airport, Tres Cruces and Estacion General Artigas. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Montevideo, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Montevideo that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Montevideo for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.