As the crow flies it’s 123 miles from BA to Montevideo, it’s across the mouth of River Plate and the journey is slow, we take 14 hours to make the trip.
Last time we were here it was Christmas Day 2012 and we did an epic 18 mile walk around the peninsula and back into the city. This time we only have a half day and we’re doing a much gentler route, taking in places we didn’t do last time but have in the past. As the weather is expected to rain, we may cut it even shorter!
Well after the event its always interesting to reflect, but suffice to say the weather played a significant part of our day. We started in relatively calm light rain, with breakfast on our varandah - humid and damp, then headed of on our planned route towards the Palacio Legislativio, the parliament building.
After this we headed on to the agricultural market, whuich was actually a disappointment as it had been gentrified to the point it was not a market at all. Instead top quality restaurants rubbed shoulders with fancy boutiques which the tourists and locals lapped up.
Our walking journey then hit the Daca, a pentagonal block which had previously been a prison, nowadays a collection of museae. The weather continued to deteriorate to the poiiht that we eventually seccomed to the use of our watrproof macs, a littte late some might say since we were wet through by then!
There are so many fabulous buildings in Montevideo dating back to heydays of the pre-war boom. Although Spanish for most of its life, the architecture looks more Parisian.
We continued back into the more central area revisiting all the old places, and even managed to catch the end of mass in the cathedral - amusingly they sang The Last Supper from Jesus Christ Superstar, very beautifully, indeed serendipitous too as Tim Rice is a fellow passenger.
With rapidly deteriorating weather we squelched back to Quest, changed and headed to the patio for lunch in the driving rain, under the awning of course!
The afternoon was fairly lazy, we introduced to the 19-strong expedition team, then later it was the usual (for Seabourn anyway) block party where one meets one’s neighbours, the room stewards bringing round canapés and champagne for the occasion.
Our front deck was closed because of the strong winds, so we resorted to the main jacuzzi on deck eight and had a surreal chat with our Canadian neighbour Carol, the subject matter not suitable for a polite blog. Drying off in driving rain was interesting and fun!
Finally we dressed for dinner and headed to the TK Grill, a new experience for us. Seabourn have done a partnership with Thomas Keller, the US equivalent of Gordon Ramsey perhaps, in that his menus and cooking style is a regular feature in all four restaurants, the grill being the only one to exclusively serve his way. Previously it was called Restaurant2 and it served a fabulous tasting menu, changing over a seven day cycle. Now it has a static menu much closer to a typical American Grill. Although the quality was fantastic I’m not too excited by the retrograde transformation.
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