Piriápolis takes its name directly from Francisco Piria, and there is no mistaking whose town this is. The grandest house belongs, as you might guess, to the founder: the Castillo de Piria, Piria's Castle, sits a few kilometers north of the beach on the road that runs past the casino. Locals call it a castle, though it functions more as a great house, and most of them have never set foot inside. The basement, closed to visitors, once served as Piria's alchemy laboratory. He had originally wanted to name the city Heliopolis, the city of the sun. Everywhere you look here, the founder's intentions are still legible, hidden in plain sight for anyone who knows to read them.

The town's first order of business, for any visitor, is the climb up Cerro San Antonio, the main hill. You can take a taxi or make the long walk, but the local pleasure is the sillitas, the little chairlift chairs that lift you from the marina to the chapel and souvenir shop at the summit. On a clear day the view stretches 50 kilometers east to the high-rise condos of Punta del Este. Inland rises a more dramatic landmark: Cerro Pan de Azúcar, Sugar Loaf Hill, a massive granite dome crowned with a large cross. The cross is hollow, with a spiral stairwell you can climb, though first you must hike roughly two hours up a poorly marked trail to reach the base of it.

Piriápolis is the unhurried cousin of Punta del Este, with fewer fancy restaurants and fewer late-night clubs, which is precisely its appeal. The town comes alive between December and March, then exhales as crowds and prices fall in the low season. Evenings here belong to the seaside restaurants, where the brick ovens turn out pizza and the kitchens grill chivitos, the thinly sliced steak sandwiches that anchor Uruguayan comfort food. The local specialty is rice and mussels in white wine, served only when the tide allowed the mussels to be gathered fresh that day. If the waiter says no, trust him. Afterward people prepare mate and walk the front, letting the South Atlantic breeze carry the night along.

Piria designed his town to be legible, and it remains gloriously simple to navigate. As the old local saying goes, if the water is on your left you are heading west toward Montevideo, and if the water is behind you, you are heading north. The city sits about 100 kilometers east of Montevideo and roughly 55 kilometers west of Punta del Este, with good bus service from both. There is one geographic irony worth savoring: Punta del Este's airport actually lies closer to Piriápolis than to Punta del Este itself, about 25 kilometers east. Beyond the beaches, day-trippers push north to Minas, a hidden gem ninety minutes inland, where ranch country opens into some of Uruguay's most beautiful sunsets.