Colonia Del Sacramento , stories. The street is short, photogenic and appealingly rustic, yet it really only interests me because of its name. Why sighs? Calle de los Suspiros used to be called Ansina and several different stories relate the reason for its poetic incarnation. The least believable concerns crime. Another version has sighing criminals being led along the street to be drowned in the river as the tide rose. Do people tend to sigh before suffering public execution? Neither idea has any real evidence to back it up.
The most romantic, and also entirely undocumented, version relates the passionate story of a lady waiting on the street for her sweetheart. She was stabbed in the moonlight by a masked man and, with her last breath, sighed the name of her lover to call him to her aid. He was too late. The most plausible explanation, and the version recounted by most tour guides as they lead visitors around Colonia, concerns prostitutes.
Apparently Calle de los Suspiros was a street-long brothel. While still a thousand times more tranquil than downtown Buenos Aires across the Rio de la Plata, Colonia is increasingly busy with day trippers and travellers. But step down the street alone, on a wet and wintry August day, and you may hear a whisper of the truth behind the Calle de los Suspiros stories.
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