Ushuaia: the train at the end of the world

The Maritime Museum and Presidio occupies the former prison that between 1902 and 1947 produced much of the city's first infrastructure, including the rails of the city railway.

That very line, today restored as the End of the World Train, takes visitors back along the same route once used by prisoners to cut wood in the forest.

The train ends at the edges of Tierra del Fuego National Park, where trails through lenga forests and peat bogs border the boundary with Chile.

In the late afternoon, a boat excursion on the Beagle Channel passes along colonies of sea lions and the Les Éclaireurs lighthouse, often mistaken for the famous 'end of the world lighthouse'.

The actual lighthouse described by Jules Verne stands further east, on a different and less-visited island: the one photographed by most tour boats is another, more recent and more photogenic structure.

Many cruise ships bound for Antarctica stop in Ushuaia for final provisioning: you thus see in the same port both tourist inflatable boats and oceanographic vessels preparing for weeks of navigation among the ice.