Sights

Madryn [1]’s tour agencies will arrange excursion to Trelew [2], Gaiman [3], Punta Tombo [4], and, of course, Península Valdés [5].

Operators include Cuyun-Co (Avenida Roca 165, tel. 02965/45-1845, www.cuyunco.com.ar [6]), Huinca Travel (Belgrano 198, Oficinas 1 and 2, tel. 02965/45-0720, www.huincatravel.com [7]), Puerto Madryn Turismo (Avenida Roca 624, tel. 02965/45-4411, www.madrynturismo.com [8]), and Turismo Puma (28 de Julio 46, tel. 02965/45-1063, www.turismopuma.com [9]). Full-day excursions run in the US$35–40 range, not including meals or park admission fees; whale-watching is extra, even on full-day tours to Península Valdés.

Sights In Town

North of downtown, the Museo Oceanográfico y de Ciencias Naturales (Domecq García and Menéndez, tel. 02965/45-1139, www.hostar.com.ar/museo [10], 9 a.m.–8 p.m. Mon.–Fri., 4–8 p.m. Sat., US$1.50, free Tues.) stresses the regional environment, wildlife, and history, including geology and paleontology, botany and oceanography, invertebrates, marine mammals, fish, birds, and the Welsh colonization.

It occupies the neoclassical Chalet Pujol (1915), built by businessman and Madryn mayor Agustín Pujol and topped by a domed hexagonal tower.

Immediately in front of the new bus terminal, one of Madryn’s oldest structures (1889), the former Estación del Ferrocarril Patagónico (train station, Hipólito Yrigoyen and Independencia) previously served as a bus terminal and is due to become a museum. On the waterfront, the modest Museo Municipal de Arte (Municipal Art Museum, Avenida Roca 444, tel. 02965/45-3204, museodearte [at] madryn [dot] gov [dot] ar, free but donations encouraged) is open 10 a.m.–1 p.m. and 6–9 p.m. Monday–Friday, 6–9 p.m. Saturday.

Where the first Welshmen came ashore in 1865, about three kilometers southeast of town via Bulevar Brown, the Parque Histórico Punta Cuevas preserves remnants of the shelters whose foundations they dug into the bluff above the high-tide mark. Its Museo del Desembarco (puntacuevas [at] madryn [dot] com, 3–7 p.m. Wed.–Mon., US$1.25), provides more details.

For Puerto Madryn’s 1965 centennial, porteño artist Luis Perlotti created two monumental sculptures: downtown’s Monumento a La Gesta Galesa (Avenida Roca and Belgrano), to honor the Welsh contribution to the area, and Punta Cuevas’s Monumento al Indio Tehuelche, a tribute to the province’s aboriginal inhabitants.