Feb 19, Montevideo

Today we are in Montevideo founded in 1726, its going to be even hotter today than the previous few days. After breakfast we made our way along the wharf and hired a taxi for 2 hours to take us to the old city of Montevideo and to look at the new city. The taxi driver was great he had a machine that allowed him to speak into it and it would transfer what he said into English and the reverse if we wanted to ask him a question. He was very friendly and gave us a wonderful tour we went to the park that is dedicated to the founder of Montevideo and also saw the founders house which is opposite the park, after that we went to view the Metropolitan Cathedral which is a eighteenth century Neoclassical Church it’s a beautiful church very ornate, opposite the church was another lovely park. After this we went to see Teatro Solis which is the original theater for Montevideo, it's a set of beautiful buildings and on top of the main building is a blue light which they used to put on when there was a performance, as it is so flat around here this was to let the people know there was a show on at the theater. We then went for a drive down to see the beaches which are lovely, this is a freshwater inlet which they call sweet water, on the other side is Buenos Aries it has a mouth of 200 miles. Then off to see the soccer stadium which was built in 1930 they had Ed Sheeran setting up for a concert, then to see a sculpture made purely of bronze that took 5 years to complete that is dedicated to the bullock teams who founded Montevideo,  after that a few more buildings and back to the ship it was 36 by now and getting very hot. Where we docked is quite interesting on one side you can see the navy ships and on the other side there are so many rusting hulls of ships it’s like a ship graveyard. After dinner, time for the show first up was Devlin a magician who was quite good then Brett Cave a pianist who was very entertaining he played songs from Elton John, Billy Joel, The Eagles and the best Peter Allen song, Tenterfield Saddler, just love this song.