Weather-wise, almost any time of the year is good for visiting Montevideo - as the climate of the city is temperate and mild, summer is nice and warm, and even in wintertime temperatures rarely reach less than 10-15°C.

The major tourist attraction of Montevideo are its beaches - that’s why most of the visitors go to Montevideo during the summer - from December till February. Most of the urban attractions of the city, however, are open year-round.

If you don’t mind crowds of Brazilians and Argentineans on vacation, heavy traffic and expensive accommodation, plan your trip to Montevideo for late February or early March. That’s when the Montevideo Carnival takes place - on the first Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

The anchor and “Range finder” of the german battleship “Admiral von Spee” can be seen in the cruise-port, just a few steps from the place, where all the cruiseships are docking. The german battleship “Admiral Graf Spee” was one of the most famous battleships in WW II : In 1939 she sank 9 merchant-ships of the Allied states but was finally damaged herself by 3 british warships following her in the “Battle of the river Plate”. She could escape to be repaired in the neutral port of Montevideo. According to international laws she was secure there only for 72 hours and had to leave the port again within that time. The captain of the “Admiral Spee” decided to give up and sink the ship rather than risking the lifes of his crew and soldiers. The range finder of Admiral Graf Spee was raised in 2004 in a distance of 8 km from the city of Montevideo.

Twenty-nine new retail spaces are being added to the mall, for a total of 205, along with 400 parking spaces, for a total of 2,051. About 1 million people visit every month, says architect Oscar J. Corlazzoli, Montevideo Shopping’s general coordinator. Among the new tenants are The Coffee Store; El Shopping de los Ni?os, a children’s entertainment concept; and Women’secret, a Spanish lingerie retailer, says Corlazzoli.

Not far from Montevideo Shopping is the 452,000-square-foot Punta Carretas Shopping, a 13-year-old, high-end mall in a building that had been Montevideo’s main prison. The prison gained worldwide notoriety in 1971 when about 100 Tupamaros (members of an urban guerrilla organization) escaped. At the end of 1990, the building was vacated and the government called for private bids. The facility is doing a much better job of keeping shoppers in than it had with prisoners. The mall has a 560-foot-long skylight, 180 shops, five anchors, a 700-seat food court and a 10-screen cinema.