Chile: Santiago

We have had 3 lovely days in Santiago, a city that has impressed me with its cleanliness, efficiency, and friendly people.  And occasionally when we get a peak, at it's beauty surrounded as it is by white capped mountains. 

We spent one day doing the Hop On, Hop Off tour.   Unfortunately that day there was a municipal strike so there were many places that were closed and repairs closed a number of others.  But we did get to see the Pablo Neruda home, La Chascona which is built with a number of different rooms up a hillside, allowing him to take advantage of the view of the mountains as he wrote and entertained.

 some houses nearby

We had lunch at the Mercado Central which had been built in 1868 with a steel lace pattern to let in light.  I can only think that at some point my parents must have been in there.  I feel that I am walking in their footsteps at times and that my history is intertwined a little with that of Chile.  There are so many things that I remember my mother telling me about.  Conger eel being one of them and I dutifully had the congria caldillo (soup) which was terrific.

During our walk around the Plaza de Armas we were fortunate to see a sample of the tango as the square was being set up for a concert/ Tanguera the next day and these two were performing for the news station.  Hence also, the difficulty of getting a shot of the Cathedral Metropolitana.  The inside was very beautiful with lots of ornamentation and painting.

 Cathedral Metropolitana

Santiago seems to be a city of apartment buildings, and many of them are festooned with plants cascading down.  It is also a very modern city, particularly in the Providencia area. 

The inside of the Costanera Mall in Providencia.  Probably the nicest mall I've ever seen, huge, clean and well set up for lots of people.  It is only about a year old.

Today we took the subway to Quinte Park which has 4 museums as well as huge treed grounds complete with a pond and pedalos.  I think every school in Santiago had an outing there today, there were so many groups of children of all ages.  We toured around the Museo Ferrovaria which was all outdoors and all steam engines.