The lighthouse of Punta del Este: what it is, where it is, and whether you can climb it
Andante notes · 8 min read
It was the first thing built in Punta del Este and it is still working: the keepers light it at sunset and put it out at dawn, every day since 1860. What almost nobody mentions is that it is not a museum, that people live inside, and that the neighbourhood of low houses around it exists because of it.
- What it is
- The first structure on the peninsula, in service since 1860
- Where
- Out on the point, corner of 2 de Febrero and Antonio Mrak
- Who owns it
- The Navy; the keepers live in the house attached to it
- The tower
- 24.90 m of masonry, 150 steps, light 44 m above the sea
- The light
- Two flashes every eight seconds, range 18 nautical miles
- Getting in
- The square is open; the tower, only on some days
Where the lighthouse is and how to get there
At the south-western tip of the peninsula, on the corner of 2 de Febrero and Antonio Mrak, inside the grounds known as Plaza del Faro. The Maldonado city government calls this the most historic spot in the resort, and it is hard to argue: around it stand the first summer houses of the place, the weather station and the church of the Candelaria.
You walk there, and there is no other sensible way to arrive. From Gorlero it is a few blocks towards the point; from the port, about the same following the calm shore. Standing beneath the tower costs nothing and needs no ticket, no opening hours and no excursion: the square is a public space and it is always open.
Just below here is also where Andante's narrated walk across the peninsula ends, a few metres further on, beside the water.
Can you climb the lighthouse? Visits, hours and tickets
Inside there is a spiral staircase of 150 steps and, at the top, the view you would imagine. But the lighthouse is not a museum with opening hours: it is a working navigational light run by the Navy, and in the building attached to the tower live the keepers, their family and the crew that maintains it.
Which is why the honest answer to «can you go up?» is «sometimes». The Maldonado city government's own publication on the monument says visitors are not admitted except on Heritage Day, which this year falls on 3 and 4 October. A weekend timetable also circulates, announced some years ago and repeated by guidebooks ever since, which no official page confirms today.
There is no published timetable that holds up. Before walking down to the point set on going up, ask at the lighthouse itself or at the tourist information office on Plaza Artigas. The hours circulating online are old and nobody updates them; the good information is on the door.
What did change is the price. In 2026 the executive set a ticket by decree for visiting the country's lighthouses, Punta del Este's among them, with the proceeds going to the Navy service that maintains the coastal lights. Going up stopped being free, and the amount is revised every January: worth confirming on the day rather than trusting a figure written months ago on any page, this one included.
The history: it started on Isla de Lobos
The light was not born here. In 1858 the signal stood on Isla de Lobos, out at sea; in 1860 it was moved to the peninsula, where it was inaugurated in March of that year under the concession of Tomás de Libarona. Why it was taken off the island is a story of hunting and business, and the whole of it is in the note about the port and its sea lions.
The lighthouse, then, was the first thing here. The town had been founded in 1829 as Villa Ituzaingó and had nothing yet that resembled a city: the tower arrived before the houses, before Gorlero and before the resort.
The concession expired on 1 February 1880 and the lighthouse passed to the State, which has run the service directly ever since. In 1923 it was rebuilt and given the annexes it has today, with bedrooms, kitchen and dining room for the staff. On 30 March 1976 it was declared a National Historic Monument.
What it does today: two flashes every eight seconds
It still does exactly what it was brought here for: to say where the land ends, at the point where the Río de la Plata meets the Atlantic. It shows two flashes every eight seconds and its light reaches 18 nautical miles, about 32 kilometres.
The tower is masonry, circular in section, and stands 24.90 metres; the light sits 44 metres above sea level. The structure was built from a volcanic-ash amalgam known as tierra roma, brought from Italy, to which the tower's durability is credited. The lighting system came from France, runs on electricity and, when the power fails, on acetylene gas.
The keepers light it at sundown and put it out at dawn, and they also tend four buoys and two beacons in the Río de la Plata. It is a workplace, not an attraction, and that explains much of why you cannot go up whenever you please.
The lighthouse quarter: why there are no towers
Look at the photograph again. In a city of high-rises, not one building around the lighthouse goes above two floors. This is not nostalgia on the neighbours' part: nothing tall goes up near the tower so as not to interfere with its work, and the result is a quarter of early twentieth-century houses that looks like nowhere else on the peninsula.
The street names came out of that. El Faro is street number 5, and 2 de Febrero, the old street 10, was the town's main artery back when the lighthouse and the port customs house both stood on it. It lost that role in 1938, when commercial life moved to Gorlero, which is why today it is a silent street a few metres from the loudest one.
In 1989 the neighbours founded the Association of Friends of the Punta del Este Lighthouse. In 2013 they asked for the lighthouse and the quarter around it to be declared a heritage protection area, so that the height limits would be set in writing rather than by custom. It was not approved.
This stretch, the low houses between the port and the point, is where «La otra Punta del Este», Andante's narrated walk, comes to an end.
What the people who climbed it wrote
For decades, climbing the lighthouse was what everyone did in Punta del Este. In 1905 the keeper of the day opened a visitors' book, and whoever reached the top left a signature and a comment in it. The habit held until around 1930.
The pages survive, and they are better reading than any brochure.
Land here will only go up in value. The lighthouse is priceless.
Though the climb costs dear, I like to climb the tower, to see, with deep regret, that man should be so greedy when the world is so small.
The 1908 one was right on the money: land on the peninsula is now among the most expensive in the country. The 1909 one was already complaining about the price of going up, a hundred and seventeen years before it started costing again.
What is around it: the square and the Candelaria
Across the square stands the church of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, the bell tower that appears on the left of the photograph. The first chapel opened in 1911; the present building went up between 1941 and 1942 to a design by the architect Antonio Chiarino and was consecrated on 31 January 1942. From the old church only the portal and the bell tower remain.
The name goes back much further. On 2 February 1516 Juan Díaz de Solís named this place and the bay of Maldonado Santa María de la Candelaria, and from that came the official name of the port too - Puerto Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, though nobody calls it that.
A few blocks away, on the Brava, stands La Mano, which is what most people came to see. The lighthouse is what was already here.
Questions that keep coming up
Where is the lighthouse of Punta del Este?
At the south-western tip of the peninsula, on the corner of 2 de Febrero and Antonio Mrak, inside Plaza del Faro. It is a few minutes on foot from Gorlero or from the port.
Can you go up the lighthouse in Punta del Este?
Not every day. The Maldonado city government's publication says visitors are not admitted except on Heritage Day; a weekend timetable also circulates that no official page confirms today. The square, on the other hand, is always open.
What are the lighthouse's opening hours?
There is no published visiting timetable that holds up: the lighthouse is a working Navy signal, not a museum. The one date that appears every year is Heritage Day, which in 2026 falls on 3 and 4 October.
How much does it cost to visit?
Walking up to it and looking costs nothing, because the square is public. Climbing the tower does: in 2026 the executive set a ticket by decree for visits to the country's lighthouses, and the amount is revised every January, so it is worth confirming on the day.
When was the lighthouse built?
It was inaugurated on the peninsula in March 1860, under the concession of Tomás de Libarona. The signal had existed since 1858, but on Isla de Lobos: only in 1860 was it moved ashore.
Why is it the oldest building in Punta del Este?
Because it arrived before the town did. Punta del Este had been founded in 1829 as Villa Ituzaingó and had almost nothing built when the tower was lit, in 1860.
Does anyone live inside the lighthouse?
Yes. The building attached to the tower houses the keepers, their family and the crew that maintains the place; they light it at sundown and put it out at dawn, and they also tend four buoys and two beacons in the Río de la Plata.
How long does the visit take?
Ten or fifteen minutes if it is only the square, which is what will almost always happen. Worth spending them walking round the block: the quarter of low houses is half of what there is to see here.
What the lighthouse does not tell you
The lighthouse takes ten minutes to look at and says nothing. The whole peninsula is another matter: «La otra Punta del Este» is a narrated walk that sets off from La Mano, crosses from the rough shore to the calm one, passes the port and ends beside the water, metres from the tower, told by Graciela, who was born here when this was a fishing village.
One hour · 3.8 km · no app, opens in the browser · no group and no schedule · $U 199 ≈ US$ 5
Lighthouse photograph: Jimmy Baikovicius (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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