The Peninsula
The route enters Punta del Este from the east and threads through the grid of the old peninsula toward its tip. The first stop is the Faro Punta del Este / Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, a pair of landmarks that define the oldest corner of the city. The lighthouse has stood at the point since 1860, built from local stone and volcanic ash concrete, and it marks the precise line where the Río de la Plata ends and the Atlantic begins — not a symbolic divide but a visible one: calmer, golden-sand beaches on the river side, harder surf and white sand on the ocean side. Directly across from it, the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria presents its distinctive blue-and-white facade, the most prominent Catholic church on the peninsula, its origins dating to the early 20th century though the current building was completed in 1941.