Punta del Este

Spaniards were the first Europeans to reach this point of the coast, early in the 16th century, but settlement came only in the late 18th century, around Maldonado. In August 1827, during the Cisplatine War, Juan Antonio Lavalleja led a three-day operation that failed to dislodge a small Brazilian garrison from the peninsula. At the end of the 19th century the area was kilometres of sand and dunes. In 1896 Antonio Lussich bought about 1,800 hectares of empty land and began planting trees from around the world, the first of them tamarisks, pines, eucalyptus and acacias chosen to resist the wind and sand.

Punta del Este was declared a village in 1907 and grew as a summer retreat for families from Montevideo and Buenos Aires. It became a city in 1957 and briefly entered world history: the Alliance for Progress charter was signed here in 1961, an inter-American conference in 1962 suspended Cuba from the Organization of American States, and in 1967 a summit of the Americas brought President Lyndon Johnson.

In the 1970s threats by the Tupamaros guerrillas and a shift towards cheaper hotels drove away many Argentine visitors. The 1980s brought a building boom of apartment towers, spas and hotels, and in 1986 the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, which led to the World Trade Organization, was launched here. The resort hosted the Whitbread round-the-world yacht race from 1985 to 1994 and Formula E races in 2014, 2015 and 2018, and property development remains one of the engines of its economy.

Punta del Este has been called the Hamptons, the Monaco and the St Tropez of South America, and in January it lives up to the comparisons: Argentine and Brazilian visitors, art exhibitions, polo, beach clubs and dinners that start near midnight. Many well-known people have owned summer houses here. The rest of the year it is a quiet seaside town.

Art is part of the resort's identity. Mario Irarrázabal's La Mano, the hand emerging from the sand of Playa Brava, has been a symbol of the city since 1982. At Punta Ballena the painter Carlos Páez Vilaró built Casapueblo, his whitewashed house and studio, by hand from 1958, and watching the sunset from its terraces has become a ritual, marked by the museum's daily Ceremonia del Sol. The sculptor Pablo Atchugarry's foundation holds summer exhibitions and concerts in its sculpture park.

The coast has two characters: the calm Mansa beaches facing the bay, and the surf of the Brava beaches facing the Atlantic. Across the Maldonado Creek, La Barra is where younger summer visitors go out at night. Religious life includes Catholic parishes and chapels and several synagogues.

About 18,200 people live in Punta del Este year-round, a number that multiplies in summer. The resort is joined to the city of Maldonado, the department capital, and Maldonado department is among the fastest-growing in Uruguay. Argentines, Brazilians and Europeans have increasingly chosen to live here permanently.

The economy runs on tourism and building. Many of the towers along the beaches are second homes, many owned by Argentines, and their construction, maintenance and cleaning employ much of the area's workforce. In winter the streets empty and many hotels and restaurants close, and workers fall back on other jobs or short contracts.

The rhythm is seasonal above all: a frantic six to eight weeks from Christmas, then a long quiet stretch. Current issues include the cost of housing for local workers, coastal erosion and debate over high-rise building along the shore. Every beach on the peninsula has public access, so residents and visitors share the same sand all year.

Seafood matters more here than in most of Uruguay. Menus feature corvina and brótola, white fish served grilled or fried, rabas (battered squid rings) and mussels, and at the port fishermen sell the morning catch while sea lions wait in the water below for scraps.

The chivito, Uruguay's national sandwich, is reported to have been invented in Punta del Este in 1946, at a bar called El Mejillón, when a customer from northern Argentina, where chivito means barbecued kid, ordered a chivito sandwich. Today it comes with steak, ham, mozzarella, tomato, olives and mayonnaise, often with bacon and egg, and chips on the side. Asado is the other local favourite.

Summer brings restaurants of every kind, from parrillas to sushi and paella, along Avenida Gorlero, at the port and in La Barra. Inland, around Pueblo Garzón, vineyards and olive groves now produce wine and olive oil, and Tannat, Uruguay's flagship red grape, is the usual partner for grilled meat.