Further Afield

Argentina's neighbours are not a region in the way the others on this site are; they are the places a journey sometimes continues into. The nearest and the most natural is Uruguay, an hour across the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires: Colonia del Sacramento, a small Portuguese-colonial town of cobbled streets and old sycamores, and further east the Atlantic coast of Punta del Este and José Ignacio, where the country spends its summer. Paraguay, the Brazilian side beyond the falls and Bolivia beyond the salt flat appear here only when a particular journey calls for them.

Colonia is the easiest addition to any itinerary: a day trip by ferry from Buenos Aires, or better, one night, so the town can be walked after the day visitors leave. The coast is a different proposition, two or three nights at José Ignacio for the beach, the restaurants and the quiet, usually at the end of a journey rather than in the middle of it. Everything else in this region is built case by case, around what the rest of the itinerary needs.

Colonia works all year and is at its best in spring and autumn. The Uruguayan coast is a summer place: José Ignacio and Punta del Este fill from late December to February, are mild and half-empty in March and April, and mostly closed in winter.