After spending a few days in Santiago, my wife and I needed to make our way to our cruise ship so that we could travel to our bucket list destination, the Panama Canal. Santiago’s port city is Valparaiso, about A 120 km drive west. The trip is on a good quality road and typically takes under two hours, including time for a stop for refreshments, etc.
Valparaíso is a historic and colorful Pacific port city and a UNESCO World Heritage site. But the route there is also interesting and I thought I’d share this small slice of Chile with you.
It takes some time to escape the urban sprawl of Santiago and enter the countryside. One of the first things we noticed is what appears to be a mine (see photos below)
Regular readers of this website will know that I enjoy taking pictures of signs. Here are a few of those we passed as we were leaving the city:
Not far outside of the Santiago you enter rolling hills and agricultural country. At first we saw many fields just growing vegetables and such….
…but one of the highlights was the many vineyards of Casablanca Valley, a wine growing area known for its Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes.
We made one pit stop along the way at a restaurant/shop in the Casablanca valley It featured a miniature display of the Easter Island stone statues — a reminder that Easter Island is formally part of Chile.
The last part of our journey took us to the coastal area and into Valparaiso. It is a hilly city and generally seemed quite poor.
Our ride took us through the heart of the city, though we did not stop until we were dropped off at the cruise terminal. Here’s some of what we saw in the city:
We arrived at the cruise port and checked in for our cruise. Everything went smoothly.
The harbor area was undergoing extensive renovations and construction, and as we did not have a lot of time, we didn’t have the chance to explore the surrounding city (though I wish we could have). But we did enjoy the fabulous views as we departed, which I’ll feature in next Friday’s blog post.
