This Welsh-founded Patagonian city is home to Argentina's largest paleontology museum and the Punta Tombo penguin colony, with over 500,000 Magellanic penguins.
In Trelew, Argentina's Chubut Province, you can walk among the bones of the world's largest dinosaur at the Egidio Feruglio Museum, sip tea in century-old Welsh teahouses, and watch Magellanic penguins waddle along the shores of nearby Punta Tombo. This city of 100,000 people maintains strong connections to its Welsh settlers while serving as a gateway to Patagonia's natural wonders.
Discovering Dinosaurs at MEF
The Egidio Feruglio Paleontological Museum displays more than 30 complete dinosaur skeletons across three floors. You'll find exhibits about early human settlements on the ground floor, while the upper levels house fossils from the Mesozoic era. The Patagotitan Mayorum, measuring 40 meters long, dominates the collection. You can see a full-sized replica of this titanosaur near the airport, where it stretches longer than three city buses.
Welsh Cultural Experience
Every October, the Eisteddfod festival fills Trelew's streets with Welsh and Spanish songs. Local and visiting choirs perform traditional music, while poets compete in both languages. Year-round, the Regional Museum Pueblo de Luis, housed in the 1889 railway station, contains photographs and personal items from the first Welsh families who arrived in 1865.
Day Trips to Welsh Communities
You can drive 20 minutes to Gaiman, where tea houses serve butter-rich Welsh cakes and traditional black tea in china cups. The Ty Gwyn tea house, operating since 1944, bakes Welsh bread daily. In Dolavon, 30 kilometers away, you can walk along the stone-lined irrigation channels that Welsh settlers built to transform the desert into farmland. The coastal town of Rawson, where Welsh pioneers first landed, now serves as a fishing port where you can buy fresh seafood directly from returning boats.
Visiting Punta Tombo
Between September and April, more than a million Magellanic penguins nest at Punta Tombo Reserve, 85 kilometers south of Trelew. Wooden walkways wind through the colony, letting you watch penguins build nests, feed their chicks, and shuffle to and from the ocean. Visit between 8 AM and 6 PM during peak breeding season (October-March) to see the most active penguin behavior.
Getting Around
Aerolineas Argentinas flies daily between Trelew's Almirante Marcos A. Zar Airport and Buenos Aires. Mar y Valle and 28 de Julio buses run every hour from 6 AM to 10 PM between Trelew and Puerto Madryn. The city center spans about 20 blocks, making it easy to walk between the museum, shops, and restaurants. Local buses run every 15 minutes along the main avenue, Fontana.
