Sunday, February 14, 2016

Vina Del Mar & Valparaiso

On Saturday, we took a full day trip to the coast to visit two towns. Vina Del Mar is a popular beach resort town and Valparaiso is the largest port city in Chile, but also has a very unique historical district designated by UNESCO.

Vina Del Mar wasn't very interesting to visit. It is a typical beach vacation town with nice beaches, but was quite run down. It was developed by a Portuguese immigrant who bought two large farms in the mid-1800's and set up resort hotels.  Chile also owns Easter Island and we stopped at a museum which had one of the sculptures out front. Neat to see!

Valparaiso has been designated an UNESCO site for its history, architecture and unique artistic character.  Many of the old buildings are covered in "graffiti artworks". The area has become the place to visit and has lots of restaurants, artist shops and boutique hotels.

Both towns are also built on the side of 42 hills, that form a natural bay. They still use a series of funicular elevators, dating back to 1883, to go up and down the cliffs from the port city below.  It was very good for trip.  We head back there on Monday to get on our ship.



The beach was very pretty



Every town seems to have a casino in it



Easter Island statue was very mystic



The UNESCO part of Valparaiso was very colourful 
with it's painted buildings and art work.








Two guys hard at work creating another piece of building art


One of the newly created boutique hotels in the area



The funicular train was originally built in the 1880s and still operates today.

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