Uruguay - A Good Place To Retire To!

A couple of hours drive from Montevideo is the town of Punta Del Estes. This is known as the St Tropez of S. America. It's a posh beach resort and sits on the coast where the Atlantic meets the River Plate (Plata), and has miles of golden sand.

The town is known as the safest in S. America and many celebrities and stars have property there. The nearby 'city' of Maldonado has a population of approx. 60,000 and is a holiday resort as well as providing most of the workers for Punta. It's the seventh largest 'city' in Uruguay.

Punta has a permanent population of 20,000 with a transient (second homes and tourists) population of 200,000. There's an ex-pat community there but property can be expensive - extremely expensive from a S. American point of view. Some of the beach front apartments cost in the millions of dollars but some of the properties further back are a lot cheaper than those in the south of England (don't know prices in the north). Property in Maldonado is reasonably cheap and is, virtually, the same place - separated by a couple of bridges and an indistinct border.

They think that the bridges are artistic. Sorry about reflections but taken from the car.




There's a cycle/running track all along the coastline for those of you that enjoy doing that sort of thing!



And exercise machines everywhere


This is a famous sculpture on the beach in the centre of town.

 

Thanks,

Most of the leisure is centred around physical activities such as sailing, fishing, swimming, cycling, golf (apparently excellent golf courses) etc. and they have lots of gyms. There are casinos that also have shows, a theatre (high season), lots of night clubs, very good restaurants and a lot of very good art related things (I'll show the art later).

There is some more of each in Maldonado (ten minute drive), cheaper but not quite the same standard, and the capital is not far, it's just under two hours drive away by bus but much quicker by car - motorway all the way.

Punta has its own international airport and you can get a local flight to Buenos Aries, Argentina that only takes an hour - very cheap shopping in B.A.

Taking a boat out gives you an idea of the centre of town.


On the edges of the high rise expensive area are lots of smaller properties


There are also some rather peculiar, open air, pieces of art.





I don't think this was meant as a piece of art but the stretch of fence didn't fence off anything or go anywhere!
The shadows look quite good in the soft sand. This artistic interpretation was taken by Mrs Shiney . I just saw a fence!

 

If you ever get to the Punte area then two of the gallery/museums that you shouldn't miss are Casa Pueblo and the Ralli museum.

Casa Pueblo is a rather unusual place.

It was designed and built by the sculptor/artist Carlos Paez Vilaro and is just 10 miles from Punte. The design was supposed to represent the style of the mud nests built by the local birds.

He started off by building it as his home and studio and, over many years, has extended it to include a hotel.

Amongst his friends were many of the famous artists such as Salvador Dali.

His most famous works were his murals, some of them enormous, and there are over 100 of them scattered around the world. Although he was there and painting when we were there, he died a few weeks ago at the age of 90.


His son, Carlos Paez Rodriguez, became famous for being one of the survivors of the plane crash, 13/10/1972, in the Andes where they ate the bodies of the people who had died in the crash. They had crashed high in the mountains in the snow and ice and weren't rescued until 23rd December.

He became known as 'The man of the iron spirit' and wrote a very big selling book about their experiences during surviving the 70 days in the almost impossible conditions. The book was called 'After The Tenth Day' and some of the other survivors also wrote books about it. An English speaking film was made about the incident ('Alive') and films in other languages and lots of film and TV documentaries were made.

As you approach the Casa you see this rather peculiar statue.



The entrance way has a sun over it


and the exit has a moon


There are a number of paintings on the walls on the way in.

 

The building rambles about quite a bit.

 

He had a few small items dotted around and a lot of paintings on the walls. He'd also written a lot of books on art and many things were on sale in his shop.

There were some very well contented cats and they were needed to catch the mice.





There is a nice bar and terrace overlooking the sea.

 

His paintings were not to my liking but they're very popular

 

The Ralli Museum is an entirely different place. It's in the Hollywood district of Punte Del Este (posh suburb) and is one of a group of private museums. It was the first one and the others are in Chile, Israel and Spain. All five were privately sponsored by Harry Recanati, do not accept donations and have totally free entry. Harry loved art and he came from a rich, banking, family. He left the business to sponsor and build his museums and has the largest Latin American and Spanish collections in the world.

Harry died two years ago but his legacy will continue.



The problem with posting pictures of the fantastic art in the museum is that we have hundreds of photos and I don't have the time to do too much. If you want some more then I can add them later.

There are a lot more sculptures than there are paintings and quite a lot of sculptures by Salvador Dali. Most of his work was behind glass and not so easy to photograph.

We were there on Christmas Eve and there was a special opening (normally closed) which just a few of us got to.






There were sculpture courtyards and gardens - a very well designed museum.

 

I'll continue posting some of the artwork. You'll see some different styles.





The Alice books are some of my favourites but I'm not quite sure about the meaning of the ballet dancer sitting on the table. Just a piece of useless information:- the real Alice, whom the story was devised for,(Alice Riddell) had brown hair but she's always depicted as blonde.

 

Some more statues - from the courtyard

 

Paintings

 

The sculpture garden.

I found that the delicacy and gentleness of some of these sculptures fascinating