Finca Piedra and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay—April 16

After we checked out of the hotel, we visited an estancia ranch.  This ranch was started by a Frenchman who had fallen in love with Uruguay and had wanted to develop a vineyard.  He bought the land, got the vineyard started, and asked his daughter and son-in-law to take it over.   It is called Finca Piedra.

 

Nadia introduced to the family to us while we were served tea on the terrace beside the pool overlooking the vineyards.

 

 

This young family has continued to develop the vineyard and now have begun to produce the wine themselves.  In addition, the daughter has begun to develop it as a ranch where tourists can come and spend a few days.

Here is a tourist family relaxing under the trees.  Notice the mate on the table.

 

 

After the introduction, we were taken for a ride through the fields and vineyards with the resident Gaucho and his horse.

 

 



Then some tried their hand at milking a cow.

 

We then walked to an area where they keep guinea hens, ducks, geese, turkeys, peacocks, deer…

 

 

…even water hogs—which are 200 pound rodents.  Not sure if they are eaten like the Peruvian guinea pigs.

 

But we did have a wonderful lunch here of roasted beef, lamb, chicken and sausage with delicious wine from the vineyards we had just visited.

 

 

After lunch, we drove stopped at Colonia del Sacramento. This town dates from 1680 and was the only Portuguese settlement along the Rio de la Plata.

Here the river is only 17 miles wide compared to over a hundred miles wide at the estuary in Montevideo.  For years it operated as a contraband port because it could evade strictures imposed by the Spanish crown.  A lighthouse is seen in the background of the ruins of a convent.

Today it is a resort city, a port and the trade center for the surrounding rich agricultural region. The historic quarter was named a UNESCO heritage site in 1995.

 

 

 

 

 

Colonia del Sacramento is across the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires.  It is the main water thoroughfare for visitors from Argentina to access any part of Uruguay.   We took a ferry from here to Buenos Aires, arriving in the evening to be introduced to a new country and this beautiful city by our guide, Hector.