Photo: Felipe Restrepo Acosta (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walk through the Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo's old city, from the cruise terminal at its western edge east about a kilometre and a half to Plaza Independencia. It begins at the Mercado del Puerto of 1868, whose iron frame was made in Liverpool, and passes the Franciscan church, the Palacio Taranco on the site of the city's first theatre, Plaza Zabala on the site of the first fort, and Casa Rivera, bought by Uruguay's first constitutional president. At Plaza Matriz, laid out in 1726, the Cathedral and the Cabildo face each other, church and crown. Then the Museo Andes 1972, the Templo Inglés rebuilt facing the river in 1936, Joaquín Torres García's museum, the Teatro Solís of 1856, the Citadel Gate reassembled from its numbered stones, the Artigas monument with the mausoleum beneath it, and the Palacio Salvo, planned as Uruguay's first skyscraper. The port is never far: from any stop you can turn back towards the terminal.
15 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 195 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 15 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Mercado del Puerto, Iglesia de San Francisco, Palacio Taranco, Plaza Zabala, Casa Rivera.
Metropolitan Cathedral, Plaza Matriz, Cabildo de Montevideo, Museo Andes 1972, Templo Inglés.
Museo Torres García, Teatro Solís, Puerta de la Ciudadela, Plaza Independencia, Palacio Salvo.
The covered market of 1868, its iron frame made in Liverpool, with the four-faced Liverpool clock beneath its central dome.
Built 1804–1812 facing the Cathedral across the old Plaza Mayor; seat of the city government for nearly a century and of the legislature until 1925.
The museum of the 1972 Andes air crash, in which sixteen of the forty-five on board survived seventy-two days in the snow.
Joaquín Torres García's museum, with his 1943 drawing of South America upside down: 'our north is the South'.
Montevideo's theatre, opened on 25 August 1856 with Verdi's Ernani, behind its eight Corinthian columns.
The square on the site of the old citadel, with Zanelli's 17-metre Artigas monument of 1923 and the mausoleum beneath it.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 15 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 15 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Montevideo — the Ciudad Vieja from the Port to Plaza Independencia, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
15 narration points, including Mercado del Puerto, Palacio Taranco, Plaza Zabala, Plaza Matriz and Cabildo de Montevideo. That is about 27 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 15 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.