Discover boutique hotels with vintage charm in Montevideo, Uruguay

Since its 17th-century inception, the hostilities of South American forces and European colonists made Montevideo something of a melting-pot chess match. However, this juvenile city has been sculpted into South America’s most easy-going and open-minded (as evidenced by its radically liberal former president José Mujica). Set just downstream from Buenos Aires, on the north east bank of the Río de la Plata, Montevideo shares the city’s European-influenced Beaux Arts beauty in its Old Town buildings and immaculate plazas, and its flair for tango, which Montevideans allegedly conceived. Contemporary and pre-Colombian culture is well represented by fascinating museums and galleries, and the city’s nightlife unravels with the quiet urgency of a fomenting poem; often post-apocalyptically quiet streets front tango clubs, bars and cafés effervescent with dance and debate.