Montevideo · Self-guided audio walk

The Weekend Walk to the Lighthouse

Montevideo's own Sunday route: the park, the national paintings, and the Rambla out to the southern tip.

6Stops
5.8 kmDistance
80+ minTime

Photo by Vince Alongi on Openverse

This is the walk Montevideo takes on its own weekends. It begins under the trees of Parque Rodó, pauses at the free Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales to see Uruguay's national paintings, then drops down to the Rambla and follows the coast south. Along the way the city shows its everyday seaside: the sand of Playa Ramírez and a poet's old summer house. It ends at the Punta Brava lighthouse on the southern tip of Montevideo and at the shopping centre built inside the former prison, where you can stop for a coffee before heading back. Allow about two hours, more if you linger in the museum.

Hear it on the street

Get the turn-by-turn audio guide in the app. The narration plays itself as you reach each stop, hands-free and offline.

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Stop by stop

The route

Interactive map of the route. The full stop list below works without it.

Must see

Photo by VaneMD on Wikimedia Commons

Parque Rodó

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Montevideo's lakeside green space, with the art museum, a summer theater, and a boating lake near the Rambla.

Parque Rodó is where Montevideo goes when it has nothing scheduled. On a Sunday the grass fills with families, dogs, and thermoses of mate, and the little lake in the middle is busy with rented pedal boats. The park was laid out as a green lung for a fast-growing capital, and its centerpiece lake gives the neighborhood somewhere to cool off in summer. Look around and you will see it was never meant to be a museum piece: there is an amusement area for kids, a bandstand, and the open-air summer theater down toward the water.

The park takes its name from José Enrique Rodó, the Uruguayan essayist, whose bronze likeness watches over the main path. The national art museum is also inside the park, two blocks east on Tomás Giribaldi, and it is your first real stop. Walk with the lake on your left, past the trees, and the museum's low, pale facade appears where the grass opens out.

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≈4 min walk to the next stop

Must see

Photo by Willy Rey on Wikimedia Commons

Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales

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Uruguay's national art collection, free, in a low building inside the park, from Blanes to Torres García.

This is the free museum Uruguay built for its own painters. The Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales opened in 1911 as the Museo de Bellas Artes, and its collection has grown to more than six thousand works, the largest gathering of Uruguayan art in the country. Inside, the permanent rooms move from the nineteenth century to the twentieth: Juan Manuel Blanes and his scenes of national history, Carlos Federico Sáez's portraits, Pedro Figari's small, joyful scenes of candombe and country life, and the constructive grids of Joaquín Torres García. The museum is not vast, and that is part of its appeal.

You can stand in front of a Figari and be the only person in the room. Entry is free, and it opens Tuesday to Sunday from one to eight in the evening, so if you are walking on a Monday you will have to enjoy the facade. Take your time here; this is the longest stop on the walk. When you leave, head back toward the Rambla and look for the low, round shape of the summer theater.

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≈9 min walk to the next stop

Local pick

Photo by Marcelo Campi on Wikimedia Commons

Playa Ramírez

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The city beach along the Rambla, named for a nineteenth-century salting house and crowded all summer.

Playa Ramírez is the beach Montevideo can walk to. It is a modest arc of sand between the Rambla and the river, and in January it is packed with umbrellas, footballs, and families who set up for the whole afternoon. The name comes from José Ramírez Pérez, who ran a salting house here in the nineteenth century, when this stretch of coast was a working edge of the city rather than a place to swim. The water is the Río de la Plata, wide enough here to feel like the sea, and the far shore is Argentina, though you will rarely see it through the haze.

You do not need to go down onto the sand. The walkway is the better place to watch the whole scene, from the joggers to the vendors selling churros and the maté circles under the palm trees. When you are ready, keep the water on your right and walk east along the Rambla. The next stretch is the longest of the tour, about two kilometers to a strange little castle on the coast.

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≈26 min walk to the next stop

Free preview ends here · stops 4 to 6 continue in the app

Museo Zorrilla

The summer house of Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, Uruguay's national poet, preserved with his furniture and papers.

in app

Faro de Punta Carretas

The 1876 lighthouse on Punta Brava, a national monument at the southern tip of Montevideo.

in app

Punta Carretas Shopping

A shopping centre inside the old Punta Carretas prison, whose brick walls and front arch were kept.

in app

Good to know

Before you go

Is the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales free?

Yes. The national collection is free to enter and open Tuesday to Sunday from 13:00 to 20:00, closed Monday. Give it an hour or two for Blanes, Figari and Torres García.

SourceDescubrí Montevideo

Can I climb the Faro de Punta Carretas?

The 1876 lighthouse is a working maritime signal, so you see it from the rambla rather than climbing it. The walk ends here at the southern tip, with the Río de la Plata opening out in front of you.

Keep exploring

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Keep exploring

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The essentials

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Provenance · last verified August 20, 2026

Built from the Wayside route itself: the stops, their order, and the walk between them.

Photo by Vince Alongi on Openverse · CC BY 2.0

Photo by VaneMD on Wikimedia Commons · CC0

Photo by Willy Rey on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by Marcelo Campi on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by Intendencia de Montevideo on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by bullit on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0

Photo by Helge Høifødt on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0