Valparaiso, Chile

Tours of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar

We set the alarm for 6:00am and the ship landed at the dock at about 7.30am. We had time for a leisurely breakfast overlooking the sunbathed city of Valparaiso. It looked like we were going to be blessed with fantastic weather. There were large buses waiting for us at the bottom of the gang plank which took us to the cruise terminal where we got off and back onto the correct bus for the tour that we had selected for the day.

Some general information about Valparaiso

-The population of Valparaiso is 400,000. Valparaiso is a very busy commercial port and we were docked right in the middle of it so there was a lot of activity to watch from the ship.
-There are ski areas in the Valparaíso Region, with an estimated 20 kilometres of slopes, served by 14 ski lifts. The highest ski mountain is Portillo at 3310m
-The hills of Valparaíso (Cerros Valparaíso) are the predominant geographical features of the city. There are 42 separate hills, and, in most cases, the name of the community is tied to the name of the specific hill.
-There are Tsunami warning signs all along the coast.
-The language spoken is Castilian. They drop letters at the end of words and speak very rapidly.

We took a funicular, (El Peral) to the highest lookout point to overlook the city. The funicular was originally built in 1902 but upgraded (thankfully) several times since then. There used to be 10 funiculars, but they have been rendered unusable because of earthquakes, and no funding to restore them. From there, it was an easy walk to the 2000sq meter Palacio Baburizza built around 1916 by one of the most important families of Valparaiso, the Ottorino Zanelli family who came from Italy. He built it for his wife Margarita, with whom he had 7 children, but they lived in it for only one year before he died. After Ottorino died, she sold the building to Pascual Baburizza in 1925 and went to Italy with her family.

Pascual Baburizza made his fortune as an investor in the saltpetre trade in Chile. He devoted his fortune largely to philanthropic works. He never formed a family, so he did not have direct descendants. It is said that Baburizza felt lonely in Chile, which was his second home, so he returned to his native country Croatia. Since he was a huge admirer and collector of art, he willed his entire art collection to the city of Valparaíso. The government acquired the Palacio Baburizza in 1971 and turned it into the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts of Valparaíso. We toured the huge house with its many rooms displaying an incredible number of fine paintings. After descending on the funicular, we took a trolley car to Villa Victoria, a 19th century mansion, home to one of the wealthiest women of the city, Dona Blanca Vergarad. It was not a great tour and far too long. We had to finally leave in the midst of it as we had to be ready for our afternoon tour. We returned the ship for a hasty lunch.

For our next tour, we headed out towards Viña del Mar and saw the university along the way. Vina del Mar is a region within Valparaiso known as the Garden City, its most famous sight being an enormous working clock, the Reloj de Flores (Flower Clock) made of flowers that bloom throughout the year. It is set on a sloping lawn at the foot of Cerro Castillo and is a masterpiece of landscape gardening making use of an abundance of colorful flowers. This botanical landmark is an actual working clock and was inaugurated in 1962 as part of the FIFA World Cup, for which Viña del Mar was one of the host cities. The hour hand is 10 feet long, and guess what? Vandals stole the hands of the clock and it will cost $35,000 to replace them. Not going to happen anytime soon!

Our tour concluded with a drive by of a stunning 1930 casino (didn’t go in) and then stopped at the Fonck Museum which had exhibits from Chile and Easter Island.
We returned to the ship for a multimedia show at the pool deck on the big screen, depicting the musical culture and dances of Chile.

Dinner that night was at The Chef’s Table for a French themed 5-course dinner with wine parings. The menu was called Anthony’s Bistro.
After dinner we started the sad necessity of packing up our suitcases for the next day’s debarkation.Read more