Extra Days · Before the ship sails, December 2027
If you have a spare day in Buenos Aires, there are two classic ways to spend it. One crosses a border. One goes out to the grass.
Option one: Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay
Portuguese settlers founded Colonia in 1680, on the far shore of the Río de la Plata, directly opposite Buenos Aires.
Spain and Portugal then fought over the town for more than a century, and it changed hands repeatedly. Both sides built. You can still tell the difference on the street: Portuguese houses in stone with tiled roofs, Spanish houses in brick with flat roofs.
UNESCO listed the historic quarter as a World Heritage Site in 1995.
What you see. Cobbled streets in the Barrio Histórico. The Portón de Campo, the old fortified city gate, dating from 1745. The Calle de los Suspiros. A lighthouse you can climb for a view over the river. About 2,600 people live here.
Getting there. Fast ferries cross the roughly fifty kilometres in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Buquebus and Colonia Express both run the route.
Bring your passport. This is a different country. Argentine exit and Uruguayan entry are handled together at the Buenos Aires terminal before you board. You walk straight off the ferry in Colonia.
Book the ferry in advance.
Option two: a day at an estancia
A día de campo, a day in the country, is the Argentine version of a day trip.
You drive out of the city to a working ranch. There are horses to ride, an asado cooked over coals, folk music and dancing, and a great deal of open grassland.
San Antonio de Areco, about seventy miles northwest of Buenos Aires, is the traditional gaucho town and the usual base for this. Other estancias sit closer in.
Most run as full-day packages including transport, lunch, and activities.
Colonia or an estancia: which to choose
Colonia if you want history, cobblestones, and a second country stamped in your passport.
An estancia if you want horses, meat cooked over a fire, and the countryside that made Argentina rich.
Either fills a day. Neither fits into the same day as the other.
