A concrete wave stands beside the beach road in Atlántida, and it is a church. The Iglesia de Cristo Obrero y Nuestra Señora de Lourdes, in the Estación Atlántida district, was designed by the Uruguayan engineer Eladio Dieste and finished in 1960. It is made entirely of brick, and its undulating walls ripple like fabric, rising to a sinuous roofline that seems to defy the material. Dieste used a technique he called reinforced ceramic, which allowed thin brick shells to span huge spaces with almost no thickness. The result is light, strong and beautiful, and in 2021 UNESCO added the church to the World Heritage list.
Inside, the effect is even better. Light enters through slender gaps in the wall and spills down the curving brick, and the whole interior feels like a calm cave of warm red-orange. There is no decoration to speak of, only the geometry. It is a working parish church, so visiting hours are limited and respect for services is expected. Check ahead if you want to go inside.
The riding along the coast east of Montevideo is easy. The Interbalnearia, the main coastal highway, links a string of beach resorts, among them Atlántida, Las Toscas and La Floresta, all low-rise and a little faded, with eucalyptus and pine groves behind the dunes. The water of the Río de la Plata is brown and wide, more like a sea than a river, and the beaches are long and sandy. Summer, from December to February, is busy and warm, and the road fills with beach traffic at weekends; off season it is quiet and breezy.
Pando, about eighteen kilometres inland, is the nearest bigger town and has fuel and shops, though Atlántida itself has stations and plenty of places to eat. Try a chivito, the steak sandwich that is Uruguay's national snack, and drink mate like the locals. Watch for sandy patches on the beach roads and for winds off the river. A late afternoon visit, when the sun lights the brick, is the best.