Free Walking Tour Ushuaia: Prison, Museums, Malvinas

Your Ushuaia walking tour stop by stop: memorial, bank, prison, governor's house

1. 1

   Plaza Islas Malvinas

   

   You start on Ushuaia's waterfront, on a square that is first of all a place of remembrance. Plaza Islas Malvinas honours the Argentines who died in the 1982 war over the Malvinas, and its centrepiece is the sculpted mural Héroes de Malvinas, a national monument since 2001. Take a moment in front of it before you look at anything else.

   The mural has an unusual story. A group of young people led by the artist Vilma Natero began building it in 1988. It was then cast in bronze by Humberto Colatruglio in his art foundry in Quilmes, in the province of Buenos Aires, and brought all the way back to Ushuaia. The plaza and the monument were inaugurated on 2 April 1994, the anniversary of the start of the war.

   In 2012 the square was extended. Look for the cenotaph with its eternal flame and the wall, 20 metres long and 1.80 metres high, that lists the names of all 649 Argentines who died in the conflict; it was designed by Micaela Barroca and Alberto Santos. The flagpole is called Puerto Argentino, the Argentine name for the islands' capital. In 2015 a small hermitage was added for a statue of the Virgin Mary blessed by Pope Francis, which had travelled across mainland Argentina, to the Darwin cemetery on the islands and to Argentine Antarctica before ending its journey here.

   The plaza also has a place in national politics: the official ceremony for the 30th anniversary of the war was held here in 2012, led by the then president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Entry is free, and a quarter of an hour is enough to read the wall and walk around the flame. From here it is the longest leg of the route, 1080 m and about 15 minutes, to the Museo del Fin del Mundo.

   Hours

   Open 24/7

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Plaza Islas Malvinas on Google Maps ↗

2. 2

   Museo del Fin del Mundo

   

   The Museo del Fin del Mundo, the Museum at the End of the World, occupies one of the town's emblematic buildings at Avenida Maipú 173. Look at the walls: it is one of the few buildings from Ushuaia's early years made of masonry rather than lighter materials. The land was bought from governor Manuel Fernández Valdés in 1911, with a house already under construction, and in 1915 it opened as a branch of the Banco de la Nación Argentina. It served as a bank for more than 60 years.

   The museum itself took a long time to arrive. The first idea came in 1906, when a museum was meant to promote the young regional industry; the national authorities turned it down for lack of funds. In the early 1960s governor Ernesto Manuel Campos tried again, and the next administration even assigned a building to a future Museo Regional Fueguino, but the cost of adapting it stopped the project.

   The decisive push came from residents. In 1973 an association formed to create an official museum, and three years later it took the name H.A.N.I.S. It also fought for legal protection of the region's historical, anthropological, palaeontological and natural heritage, which became a decree of the provincial government. In 1978 the museum was finally created, after the Banco Nación handed over the building.

   Since May 2008 the museum has had two sites on the same street: this former bank and the old governor's house further along Avenida Maipú, which you will reach at the end of the walk. Entry is charged; go in if you want the founding story of the town in a compact space, around 45 minutes is enough. Then continue 460 m, about 7 minutes, to the old prison.

   Hours

   Mon–Fri 10:00–19:00, Sat 13:00–19:00, Sun and holidays closed

   Price

   ARS 9.000 general foreigners, ARS 5.000 Argentines, ARS 3.500 Argentine students/teachers/retirees; free for children under 14, persons with disabilities, Malvinas war veterans and Tierra del Fuego residents

   Website

   mfm.tierradelfuego.gob.ar ↗

   Location

   Museo del Fin del Mundo on Google Maps ↗

3. 3

   Museo Marítimo y del Presidio de Ushuaia

   

   This is the building that made Ushuaia infamous. The former Presidio, officially the Cárcel de Reincidentes de Tierra del Fuego, held the most dangerous criminals in the country, men sent here because they had offended again and again. The prison stands inside the Ushuaia Naval Base and closed its doors in 1947.

   For decades the building lay abandoned. In 1994 the Argentine Navy and the Asociación Civil Museo Marítimo de Ushuaia agreed to restore it, and the museum opened on 3 March 1995. Its director from the start, the museologist Carlos Vairo, had to deal with basics first: collapsed roofs, drains in terrible condition, no electricity and no gas. In 1997 Congress declared the building a national historic monument.

   Inside, four museums share the old walls. The Maritime Museum tells the history of Tierra del Fuego from the point of view of seafarers, through a collection of ship models, because the island, its archipelago, the Malvinas, South Georgia and Antarctica are all tied to the sea. The Prison Museum in Pavilion IV covers the first jail of 1896, the plan of a penal colony, the construction of this building, the daily work and punishments of the inmates and the sad stories of some of its best known prisoners.

   Also in Pavilion IV, the José María Sobral Antarctic Museum fills 19 rooms with historical and biological material from Antarctica, and the Marine Art Museum shows Argentine maritime painting from 1889 to the present. This is the stop where going in pays off most; entry is charged, and you should allow about two hours to do it justice. Afterwards, the Museo Yámana is 420 m away, about 5 minutes on foot.

   Hours

   Mon–Sun 10:00–20:00 (last admission 19:30)

   Price

   ARS 44.000 general adults, ARS 110.000 family ticket (2 adults + 3 children under 18), ARS 34.000 students with ID under 25 / Argentine seniors & teachers; free for children under 12

   Website

   museomaritimo.com ↗

   Location

   Museo Marítimo y del Presidio de Ushuaia on Google Maps ↗

4. 4

   Museo Yámana

   

   The Museo Yámana is permanently closed, so you only pass it from outside. It still deserves a pause, because it was dedicated to the people who lived on these shores long before the town existed: the Yámana, also called Yaganes.

   The museum opened in 1999 as the Museo de Maquetas Mundo Yámana. With panels and scale models it recreated scenes of everyday Yámana life, both before and after the arrival of Europeans on the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. One room covered how America and the island were first settled, another how Europeans and Yámana came into contact, and a third their customs. It also dealt with the descendants of the other original peoples of Tierra del Fuego, the Haush, Selk'nam and Alacaluf.

   Keep that history in mind as you walk on: the governor's house at the end of the route belongs to the era when the Argentine state arrived here. The last leg is short, 310 m and about 4 minutes.

   Status

   Permanently closed

   Location

   Museo Yámana on Google Maps ↗

5. 5

   Antigua Casa de Gobierno de Tierra del Fuego

   

   The Antigua Casa de Gobierno, known locally as the Ex Casa de Gobierno, was the first seat of government of the National Territory of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands. Today it is the second site of the Museo del Fin del Mundo, and it is a national historic monument since 1983.

   Its beginnings are a good story. The design came from the government's architecture office under the architect Francisco Tamburini and is dated 17 September 1885. On 14 January 1886 the newly appointed governor, Félix Mariano Paz, boarded a ship in Buenos Aires with the house on board, taken apart in pieces. Exactly when it was put up nobody knows, because all plans and documents were lost in a fire at the previous government building in 1920. Estimates range between 1886 and 1893; other references suggest it came into use around 1891. An upper floor was added later.

   For more than a century the house served many official purposes. It began as the governors' residence; after the 1920 fire it also became the seat of government, and from 1976 to 1983 it temporarily housed the police headquarters. Later it was home to the territorial and then the provincial legislature until 2002.

   Entry is charged; give it about half an hour if you liked the bank museum and want to see the rooms where the territory was governed. This is the end of the route; if you want to return to the waterfront, the GPS navigation in your browser leads you back to Plaza Islas Malvinas.

   Local name

   Ex Casa de Gobierno

   Hours

   Mon–Fri 10:00–19:00, Sat 13:00–19:00, Sun and holidays closed

   Price

   ARS 9.000 general foreigners, ARS 5.000 Argentines, ARS 3.500 Argentine students/teachers/retirees; free for children under 14, persons with disabilities, Malvinas war veterans and Tierra del Fuego residents

   Location

   Antigua Casa de Gobierno de Tierra del Fuego on Google Maps ↗

Shorter ways to walk Ushuaia

Not everyone has a full afternoon or wants three museums in a row. These versions keep the logic of the route and cut what you can spare.

Outside only, about an hour and a quarter

Stops: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

For travellers with a few hours before a boat or a flight. You walk the whole route in 32 minutes, read the facades and the memorial, and pay no entry at all.

Memorial and prison

Stops: 1, 2, 3

For anyone who mainly wants the old prison. From the plaza you pass the Museo del Fin del Mundo and reach the prison in 22 minutes of walking; only the prison museums charge entry, and you get there with time and energy to spare. Allow just under three hours in total.

Compact town centre with museums

Stops: 2, 3, 4, 5

For museum lovers who skip the long first leg. Starting at the Museo del Fin del Mundo, the walking adds up to 16 minutes; the bank museum, the prison and the old governor's house all charge entry. Plan around three and a half hours.

How long this Ushuaia tour takes, with and without the museums

The pure walking time is 32 minutes, and the longest leg is the first one, 1080 m from the plaza to the Museo del Fin del Mundo. After that the stops sit close together: 460 m, 420 m and 310 m.

The time goes into the museums. Give the old prison about two hours, because it holds four museums under one roof; the Museo del Fin del Mundo and the Antigua Casa de Gobierno each deserve around 45 and 30 minutes, the memorial about a quarter of an hour. Altogether that makes roughly four hours. Walked from outside only, the route takes about an hour and a quarter.

Before you set off in Ushuaia

• Start and finish: The recommended start is Plaza Islas Malvinas, the finish is the Antigua Casa de Gobierno de Tierra del Fuego. You can join the route at any stop, and the GPS navigation leads you back to the start if you want.
• Time of day: If you plan to go inside, start early enough that the museums are still open when you reach them, and check their hours before you leave. For an outside-only walk any daylight hour works.
• Entry: Plaza Islas Malvinas is free. The Museo del Fin del Mundo, the Museo Marítimo y del Presidio de Ushuaia and the Antigua Casa de Gobierno charge entry, with reduced and free categories that you can ask about at each ticket desk. The Museo Yámana is permanently closed.

Common questions about walking Ushuaia