Valparaiso

A short (1 ½ hour) bus trip took us to this important port city that’s also a world heritage site. Before the Panama Canal was completed, this was a major stopping point for ships bringing products to the Americas from all over the world. While it’s still quite an active port, it’s lost much of its’ former wealth which is captured in the city’s many beautiful, crumbling, old buildings and villas built into the hillsides.
Famous today for murals and graffiti art, it was an interesting place to walk around up many steep and windy steps, streets and with occasional rides on funiculars. We’re so glad we didn’t try to drive here, it would have been challenging as all of our rental cars have been manuals and the streets are super narrow, steep and windy.
Our hotel was in a restored villa and we loved our room with its’ wide-planked wood floors, 15+ foot high ceilings and a view out over the bay. We also enjoyed some very fresh fish and delicious salads at cafes and overall preferred the city to Santiago. The only downside was all the free-range dogs meant having to be very careful about where you walked as there was dog doo everywhere (this let your dogs roam free thing is the only real unpleasant part of Argentina/Chile so far).Read more