An Escape from the City: Villa Serrana

The small little town of Villa Serrana is about as far from the hustle and bustle of the city as you can possibly get. Located 145 Km away from Montevideo in the Lavalleja Deparment--it's a great place to get back in touch with nature.


For Columbus day or "Dia de la Raza" we took a trip to itty bitty Villa Serrana. This was another one of those towns where the bus driver calls out the name of the town and you hop off on the side of the highway. Fortunately this time there were signs pointing to the village. It was about a 4 kilometer walk to even see any sign of civilization, and even then, we saw more animals than humans (Including ants, haha, but this time they weren't crawling on me but rather carrying blades of grass 3 times their body weight to who-knows-where).


We stopped by the Baño de la India, the observatory, and a few other points of interest, but mostly we just hiked around and breathed in the fresh air. Other than waiting forever for a bus to take us back to Montevideo and not having a seat for the 2.5 hour bus ride, the trip was great success.


One this is for sure: the Uruguayan countryside is breathtaking. cattle, horses, and sheep graze in open free-range pastures, gurgling springs trickle down green fields, rolling hills sweep along the horizon, and white clouds dot the brilliant blue skies. Villa Serrana is all nature.