Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
seum. At noon on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays visitors can also tour the
Casa Grande, a mansion that housed the factory's manager.
Inside the museum dozens of colorful displays - ranging from the humorous to
the poignant - bring the factory's history vividly to life: a giant cattle scale where
school groups are invited to weigh themselves; or the old company office upstairs,
left exactly as it was when the factory closed in 1979, with grooves rubbed into the
floor by the foot of an accountant who sat at the same desk for decades.
The adjacent town of Fray Bentos, with its pretty riverfront promenade, is the
southernmost overland crossing over the Río Uruguay from Argentina. It's 45
minutes by bus from Mercedes, four hours from Colonia or Buenos Aires, or 4½
hours from Montevideo.
Sights & Activities
Activities along the riverfront include boating, fishing and swimming at the sandy
beaches, or simply strolling along the Rambla (especially popular on Sunday afternoons).
Museo Paleontológico
Alejandro Berro
MUSEUM
( 4532-3290; Parque Castillo Mauá; 11am-5pm)
About 6km west of town, this
museum displays a substantial fossil collection and an impressively well-preserved glypt-
odon shell discovered in a nearby riverbank in early 2010.
Tours
Catamarán Soriano I
BOAT TOUR
( 4532-2201 ext 2503; tours per person UR$200-500)
This cruise boat offers occasional ex-
cursions on the Río Negro and Río San Salvador. For schedules and tickets, inquire at
Mercedes' downtown tourist office.
Sleeping & Eating
Camping Isla del Puerto
CAMPGROUND $
( 4532-2733; Isla del Puerto; sites per person/tent UR$24/78)
Mercedes' spacious camp-
ground, one of the region's best, occupies half the Isla del Puerto in the Río Negro. Con-
nected to the mainland by a bridge, it has swimming, fishing and sanitary facilities.
