Hotels Restaurants Bars Cafés Sightseeing Travel Shopping Awards UruguayNow.com First guide to Uruguay in English. Features on: Teatro Solís Tristán Narvaja Market Punta del Este Uruguay’s Food Renaissance Candombe drumming Football Find out the winners of the Uruguayan Literature UruguayNow awards for: Nostalgia Night Starting a home in Uruguay Best Hotel Joaquín Torres García Best Value-Hotel Uruguay’s Interior Best Restaurant and... the UruguayNow interview Best Dining Experience First Edition: February 2010 www.uruguaynow.com Contents Fast Facts 3 Getting to Uruguay 5 Getting Around 7 Money, Costs & Shopping 9 Montevideo: What to see 11 Montevideo: Restaurants 13 Montevideo: Bars and Cafés 14 Welcome to UruguayNow! In this first edition our intention is to give you a low-down of the sights and attractions Montevideo: Hotels 15 of Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital city. Need some ideas for accommodation or a night out? Take a look at our reviews of hotels, restaurants, bars and cafés in the city. Want to know what’s unmissable in the Old Town? Read through our section on what to see – not just in the fascinating Ciudad Vieja, but also in Montevideo’s seaside suburbs, UruguayNow Awards 16 and in its nearby wine country. Sometimes described as a capital with a ranch attached, we nonetheless haven’t forgotten Uruguay’s provinces (called departamentos in this country), nor have we left Features aside its feel-good beach resorts. But with autumn approaching and Punta del Este winding down for the season, our main focus is on urban life and seeking out what Words on the street 3 makes Uruguay tick: Its passion for football, music and art. Its vibrant street markets. The historical relevance of the gaucho. And, last but not least, we do our best to ex- Football, football, football 4 plain the national obsession with Cyndi Lauper, REO Speedwagon and the rest of the kitsch pantheon of 1980s rock and pop performers. Nostalgia, you see, is a serious Theatre of dreams 5 business in these parts… Portrait of the artist 6 UruguayNow is also dedicated to searching out excellence – and reporting back to our Blast from the past 7 readers. That’s why, starting with Montevideo, our researchers have visited scores of accommodation and dining options in the city to bring you our choices of Best Hotel, What a difference a blueberry makes 9 Best-Value Hotel, Best Restaurant and Most Innovative Dining Experience for 2010. Please turn to page 17 for the full results. And when hotels and restaurants get things A resort for all seasons 10 wrong, we’ll also tell you. Uruguay’s Interior: Six of the best 11 Although the guide is subject to copyright, we are always delighted for brief passages Uruguay gets a female beat 12 to be quoted in other publications with a clear indication of the source. A happy country 13 Happy reading! Market forces 14 The UruguayNow Interview: Karen Ann 15 Inner beauty 16 “It’s a word of mouth thing” 17 Nick Foster, Publisher Credits Contact Publisher and writer: Nick Foster If you would like to contact the editorial or advertising sales team at UruguayNow Web design, research and additional content: Russ Slater please send a mail to [email protected]. If you would like to subscribe Photo credits: All photos UruguayNow except image from Joaquín Torres García to our newsletter, please mail the same address with the word “Newsletter” in the feature, reproduced by kind permission of the Museo Torres García and image from subject field. UruguayNow Interview: Karen Ann by Silvia Andrada. 2 Fast Facts Entry Requirements Words on the street Citizens of EU member states, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (among others) travelling as tourists do not need a visa to enter Uruguay. Visitors receive a Evidence of literacy – and tourist card that allows for a stay of up to 90 days. You get an automatic extension by leaving the country and re-entering. You can also obtain an extension from the literature – is everywhere in National Immigration Office at Misiones 1513, at the corner of 25 de Mayo (in Montevi- Montevideo deo’s Old Town). The cost is under US$20. Be prepared to wait in line. In recent years, Uruguay’s literacy rate has Immigration at Montevideo’s Carrasco international airport is a breeze compared hovered around 97% of the total population to entering Argentina at Buenos Aires and the chaos that is passport control at Sao – the highest figure in South America. Paulo and Rio de Janeiro airports when two or three aircraft land in quick succession. Customs agents rarely trouble foreign visitors. “Just about everyone in Montevideo can read,” says Andrés Linardi of the Librería Linardi y Risso, a mainly second-hand bookshop in the Old Town set up by Mr Lin- Remember that immigration officials have every right to ask you for evidence of funds ardi’s father and a business partner, “but what is striking is that so many butchers, to cover your stay in the country, and may also ask to see the return portion of your farmers and taxi drivers, for instance, buy and read books in Uruguay. One of my ticket. A of US$31 is levied on departure if you leave by air (US$17 if departure tax regular customers is a policeman with a beat around the Plaza Matriz who chooses you are flying to Buenos Aires). You can pay the tax in pesos. a different book every so often.” The origins of Linardi y Risso go back to 1944. Previously a pulp fiction writer had Climate set up shop in the same location. Some 45,000 books are on sale at any one time Reports of Montevideo’s classic Mediterranean climate have been much exaggerated. in the beautiful, cavernous premises, illuminated by a small winter garden at the Locals complain that weather is becoming less and less predictable, with occasional rear of the shop. hot periods in early spring and late autumn and – less pleasantly – destructive winter storms. In any case, the closest European climatic equivalent is Lisbon; if you are in Linardi y Risso is one of two bookstores just north of the Plaza Matriz which should North America think the shore of South Carolina. be on every booklover’s Montevideo itinerary. The other is the Librería Oriente Oc- cidente, a marvellously atmospheric single-room reading den with creaking, antique Average highs in the summer (December – February) are 27ºC - 29ºC with lows in floorboards, owned by longstanding bookseller Julio Moses. the 17ºC - 19ºC bracket. On the rare summer nights when there is no breeze, the city can be as breathless as Buenos Aires. Dramatic thunderstorms build up from time to “When Uruguayans want to find out about a subject, their first reflex is to turn to a time in the summer. book,” says Mr Linardi. “Traditionally Uruguayan education was based on reading and analysis. On top of that, Uruguayans are curious about the outside world. They You should take precautions against the sun in Uruguay. The rays, both in spring want to know where they are from and where we, as a nation, are from.” and in summer, are very strong. Many Uruguayans don’t go to the beach before 4 pm in the summer after news broke about a hole in the ozone layer directly above the The voracious appetite of Uruguayans for reading material peaked, according to Mr country. Others have stopped sun-bathing altogether. One Uruguayan dies of skin Linardi, in the 1960s. “We are a very politicised people, it was inevitable that with cancer every four days. so many changes in the world Uruguayans should look to books for explanations,” he says. The coldest month is July with an average low of 8ºC. But watch out for the pam- pero, a weather system than originates in the northern part of Patagonia and brings Mr Linardi concedes that the rise of the internet is making itself felt and the temperatures to the Uruguayan capital that can, on occasions, drop to nearly zero. Uruguayan love of reading is slowly being eroded: “Sometimes I buy a collection Most rain falls in the spring and summer (October to March). Montevideo is a windy from a widow who will tell me, these were my husband’s books, our children aren’t city and winter days – which are invariably sunny – often feel colder than they really so interested in reading.” are. Similarly, winter nights feel colder than they really are – not just because of the biting wind but because of the inadequacy of heating systems in many private homes Or perhaps their interests have narrowed: a current bestseller in Uruguay is La and in cheaper hotels. It has never snowed in Montevideo. socieded de la nieve, a non-fiction work by Pablo Vierci for which all the survivors Conclusion: expect the unexpected. On 13 February 1914 a drop of 18ºC was of the 1972 Andes air crash (who had to resort to eating the bodies of those who recorded in the river port of Mercedes in the space of an hour and a quarter. News- died on impact) agreed to be interviewed for the first time. paper reports from that month tell of masses of bob-haired young things scrambling desperately for their cardigans. While in the first half of the twentieth century it was French literature – plus works of Shakespeare and the Spanish Golden Age – that dominated local tastes, from the end of the 1940s onwards Uruguayan publishing houses began to publish native Information, Maps & Communications writers finding their own voice. The form many chose was the cuento, or short story.