tl;dr breakfast tour stop with terrible wine, Pablo Neruda’s house, streets of Valparaiso, boat ride with sea lions, Vina Del Mar and lunch, Moai!!, delicious dinner and drinks, and barrio Italia – 8 activities and 19,362 steps
I signed up for a tour to explore Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar to make it easier to see the things and do the things…in retrospect, I could have gone solo and probably explored more of the city.
Activity 1 – Breakfast and Wine Tasting
The tour bus made a pit stop at a winery that also serves breakfast. The food was less than mediocre (eggs and toast), but the wine was…terrible. It was way too sweet and just disappointing. Also, having wine at 8:00am when it still feels like 6am (time difference), was less than ideal.
Activity 2 – Pablo Neruda’s House (La Sebastiana)
Our first real stop was at Pablo Neruda’s house. It was a quaint house decently up the hillside. We only viewed the house from the outside – would have been cool to go inside. Pablo lived on the top two floors as those floors inspired him the most – even from the viewpoint we had (on the ground level), I could see why he wanted that view.
We also stopped by a small park down the block from La Sebastiana where there are three statues (Plaza de las Poetas) – Pablo Neruda, Vicente Huidobro, and Gabriela Mistral.
Activity 3 – Valparaiso
Valparaiso is a really interesting and exciting city – it is built into the side of a steep hill and has ~30 funiculars to get people up and down. Even with the funiculars, you need strong quads to get you up and down the steep slope.
We explored the city, took a fun slide down (video below), and admired some of the amazing street art.
I had heard that this city is extremely dangerous and you need to be super careful – while I believe there is truth to this – I never felt unsafe, but did remain vigilant (especially as it relates to pickpockets). I also felt that the city had become overly touristy and much of the local grunge had been washed to an extent. Still, it was a really fun experience.
Activity 4 – Boat ride through the Valparaiso harbor
I did not realize this activity was part of the tour. We hopped on a small boat – they made me switch sides to better distribute the weight (apparently I need to lay off the empanadas). We saw container ships and a ship repair station, but the highlight was seeing sea lions hanging around.
Activity 5 – Lunch in Vina Del Mar
This city, super close to Valparaiso, is beach front, nice, and expensive. The food, however, is not great. We ate at a spot right on the beach, which was really nice, but the food was OK (was lacking flavor depth). This city is viewed as Chile’s Miami (not sure how apt the comparison is, but who am I to argue).
Activity 6 – Real Moai from Easter Island
We stopped by a museum that had a Moai hanging out front. This guy was definitely one of the smaller ones, but it was still really cool to see in person. The Moai are human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island between the years 1250 and 1500.
After this stop, it was back to Santiago.
Activity 7 – Boca Nariz for dinner
Boca Nariz is a wonderful wine bar! I had two dishes (an amazing fried potato dish that takes 25 minutes to prepare and a trout tartare). The trout was pretty good, but the fried potato dish was out of this world. The signature cocktail was really tasty and the wine pairing for the trout was pretty solid as well. I definitely recommend grabbing a bite and drink at Boca Nariz.
Activity 8 – Drinks
After dinner I stopped by Bar Berri for a beer before walking to Barrio Italia for another drink. Barrio Italia is a great spot for food, drinks, and people watching. There were so many options to choose from, but I stopped by two places that were recommended to me: Bar y Vuelvo and The Jazz Corner. Bar y Vuelvo was really crowded (I got the last table), but it was definitely more of a bar to go with friends, hang out, and drink some beer. It had several different rooms and levels with drinking spots throughout.
I reached The Jazz Corner at the worst possible time – right after a band had completed their set and before the new one had even begun to set up. I had heard that The Jazz Corner is an amazing late night spot where you can even spot the President of Chile hanging out. For those wondering, I did not see him, but that’s probably because I was there too early in the evening (he has apparently shown up after 2am).
I wanted to hang around for a set, but decided that 1 something am was a late enough night, especially with a wine tour tomorrow.
Andrew's Activities 