On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good morning, everybody,
Today we return to DAW’s fantastic trip. I so want to hit these places. I need to spend some serious time in South America before I get too much older!
Next we went to Montevideo and then Buenos Aires. They’re close together. Both of them are on the same river with BA farther inland.
Montevideo was my favorite stop on this trip. I had no expectations. I’m not even sure I could have said it was in Uruguay, but it was charming. For one thing, it was easy. You walked off the ship, straight into town, whereas the other cities all had big, working ports that were far from anything.
In Buenos Aires, as in Montevideo, the guide talked a lot about soccer. I gather the first FIFA World Cup took place in Montevideo, though the guide moaned about how many games they’ve lost since then.
This is the Legislative Council building. The Uruguayan flag is the one on the left.
There used to be a wall around the city, and a fort stood on the plaza from which I took this picture. The wall is gone, but the gate still stands.
To my embarrassment, I have only one picture of Buenos Aires. It’s this pedestrian shopping street where Mr DAW and I walked in the morning. Then we went back to the ship where I plugged my phone in to charge and forgot it when we went back out for our afternoon tour.
JPL
Thank you for sharing your photos with us. What an amazing journey.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Seoul was also a walled city until the early 20th century, the occupying Japanese torn down the city walls but left the gates.
WaterGirl
Dorothy, that first photo is absolutely stunning! Just stunning. Do we know what those flowers are?
WaterGirl
Based on popular demand – requests by email, in the comments here, and in site feedback – we have made a change to On the Road.
As requested, unless you are in the individual thread itself, only the first photo is displayed. That makes for way less scrolling on the front page!
StringOnAStick
We were in Buenos Aires last year, I wish we had taken the ferry to Montevideo, especially after your photos and description! Some friends almost moved to Montevideo a few years ago; her folks live in BA but the economy is a mess so they thought Montevideo but realized it’s the Beverly hills of South America and couldn’t afford it.
One thing I loved along the Buenos Aires streets: plantings of masses of blooming clivias (think “perennial amarylis”).
StringOnAStick
@WaterGirl: Those are white agapanthas, more common is the bluish version; very common landscape plant in the warm parts of California. Gorgeous and long blooming.
Mary G
@WaterGirl: I think the flowers are agapanthus. They are all over SoCal, but the purple ones are more common here than white.
What an adventure you had, DAW!
p.a.
Thanks! I find these psych breaks more and more necessary in the current timeline, and appreciate starting off the day with these as a kind of deep cleansing breath.
WaterGirl
@StringOnAStick: @Mary G:
I thought that’s what they looked like – I even had some before the voles at them over the winter a couple of years ago – but the ones in the picture are so much more spectacular that I wasn’t sure.
Apparently they prefer Uuguay to Illinois. And California! Who could have predicted that! :-)
Baud
Nice. Doesn’t look too crowded.
satby
@WaterGirl: yay!
@Dorothy, I’ve heard very nice things about Montevideo. I’m glad you liked it.
debbie
Lovely. It looks like you had really nice weather too!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl:
Thank goodness other people knew what the flowers were because I had no idea.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I think leaving the gate must be common because I’ve seen it in other places too. I used that in Finders Keepers (my first novel, not the Stephen King book. He stole that title. :-))
Dorothy A. Winsor
@StringOnAStick:
The cruise director said she’d considered retiring to Montevideo. I guess there’s a large ex-pat community.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@debbie: I think we had one rainy day at the start of the trip in Barcelona, but other than that we were lucky.
arrieve
@p.a.: This. I like being able to contribute to On the Road when I can, but I so look forward to seeing the wonderful pictures every morning before I face the political news. Thanks for the wonderful pictures, Dorothy!
StringOnAStick
StringOnAStick
@WaterGirl: Did they bloom just the first year after you planted them? I think they’re zone 7 or 8 so Illinois might have been out of their range. I admit it drives me nuts to see nurseries sell perennials and bulbs that require a far warmer climate than is locally available, and every year I see it in their plant offerings.
zhena gogolia
My husband and I have been enjoying these.
Auntie Anne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am loving your pictures. This trip sounds (and looks) fabulous!
jeffreyw
Those photos are outstanding. You have an eye for framing and composition – very well done, indeed!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@jeffreyw: Thank you. It works even better when I remember to take my phone!
Thanks to everyone who says they enjoyed these. We had a great trip and I’m happy to share it.
Kent
My wife is Chilean and so we travel back and forth to Chile frequently but we also have traveled over to Argentina on occasion. Across the Andes to Mendoza for wine and then on to Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Once on up to Punta del Este, Uruguay which is basically the Miami Beach of Uruguay and where all the upscale Porteños (Buenos Aires folk) go for beach vacations. So I know and love this area too.
Here’s a quick geography quiz for Balloon Juicers:
Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo are the three southern-most capitals in the western hemisphere. WITHOUT LOOKING AT A MAP, place them in correct order from north to south.
chris
@Kent:
You gave it away
Lovely pics, DAW.
Kent
@chris: Most people with a vague sense of geography do not believe that Montevideo is south of Buenos Aires but it is. The Rio de la Plata that divides the two countries runs diagonally to the south east. Montevideo, which is on the north bank is further east along the Atlantic Coast while Buenos Aires which is on the south bank is much further upstream in the interior.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know what they were, only that you knew they were gorgeous and would make for a stunning picture of that spot. :-)
WaterGirl
@StringOnAStick: Good thought.
I am pretty careful about that, so I’m sure the ones I got weren’t zone 7 or 8. We are technically 5.5 at this point, and I get pretty lucky with zone 6 plants because I have kind of a microclimate in my back yard.
They came back for more than the first year, and I lost them the year the voles ate the front half of my big bed. Bastards!
StringOnAStick
@WaterGirl: Ah, voles. Yep. We don’t have those here in our 6″ of dirt on top of sandstone , but I’ve learned to pin chicken wire over newly planted bulbs for the first season or else the squirrels dig it up for the bulb food and bulbs.
J R in WV
I really like this method of displaying the pics for On the Road a lot better. It gives you a reason to click into the thread.
Dorothy, really nice pictures, what a great cruise!
I’m so glad I’ve found a whole suite of cruises that cross the Atlantic. I think the Cunard liner Queen Mary II makes more or less routine Atlantic crossings, for less than it costs to fly first class, and you get a bed and everything on an ocean liner!
opiejeanne
That sounded like an amazing trip, Dorothy, and your pictures are great.
Agapanthus can survive in WA, where we got a foot of snow this week. We have several neighbors who have beds of them, and they must not have squirrels or voles. We have both so all of the tulips are gone.
Cubi
@Kent: I’m uruguayan and I know Montevideo is the southernmost capital in the world. So I guess the order is Santiago, Buenos Aires, Montevideo
WaterGirl
@J R in WV:
Yay! I think you were one of the people who asked for this, if I’m not mistaken. I planned to check for that so I could let people know, but hadn’t gotten around to that yet!
WaterGirl
@Cubi: The first comment on Balloon Juice goes into moderation, but you should be good to go here now. Welcome!