For a window into the soul of a city, take a stroll along the waterfront: Think of the Seine walkways in Paris, the Copacabana promenade in Rio or the Charles River Esplanade in Boston. Or the nearly 14-mile palm-fringed ribbon called La Rambla, in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

One of the longest sidewalks in the world, La Rambla meanders along the shimmering estuary Río de la Plata, past beaches, wine bars and purple-blossomed jacaranda trees, statues and sculptures, soccer matches and friends engrossed in conversations over cups of yerba mate.

If you go in the summer — as the Northern Hemisphere shivers in the cold — you may find yourself part of a mass migration of locals toting folding chairs to the promenade, turning it into, essentially, the city’s outdoor living room.

ImageA section of La Rambla near the Old City. Locals bring folding chairs, pets and cups of mate to socialize along the promenade.

The promenade stitches together different pieces of Montevideo, a city of about 1.3 million, socially as well as geographically. On it, you’ll find Uruguayans from all social strata. It’s “the city’s thermometer,” as Natalia Jinchuk, a Montevideo native and author, described it to me.

With my own thermometer dipping and my imagination stoked, I planned an early-winter long weekend in Montevideo, a flower-speckled city that melds Old World and Modernist architecture, to boost my spirits with my own ramble on La Rambla.

Map highlighting La Rambla in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Capurro

Montevideo

La Rambla

Carrasco

Port

Market

Juan Pedro

Fabini Square

Brazil

Detail area

Gateway of

the Citadel

Uruguay

Old City

Montevideo

Río de la Plata

Argentina

66jogo

2 miles

La Rambla

Montevideo

Palladium Business Hotel

Playa de los Pocitos

Pocitos

Camomila

Yacht Club

Uruguayo

acordeaopg

Edificio

Mercosur

Dalí

Parque

Rodó

Mr. Gray served three terms as a Democratic mayor, up through 2005. Barack Obama won the area in the 2008 presidential election, and Democrats cornered a vast majority of the county’s legislative seats. Jon Tester, the Democrat who has long represented the state in the U.S. Senate and farms in the same northern plains region, holds his election-night celebrations in Great Falls.

3B Bueno Bonito Barato

Punta

Carretas

Playa Ramirez

Artico

Baco Vino y Bistro

By The New York Times

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