Santiago Chile - Centro, El Golf & coffee with legs

Plaza de Armas Santiago

Bounded by historic buildings, Plaza de Armas is the center of Santiago's central business district (Santiago Centro) with its office towers, restaurants and pedestrian shopping malls. The Metro (the easy to navigate subway) and the Univerity of Chile are a few blocks away.

I took this photo on a public holiday, and the plaza was empty but for a few tourists, a far cry from the weekday bustle.

Cathedral Metropolitana

Along the west side of the Plaza de Armas is the Cathedral, built in 1745. The interior is quite lovely and ornate, as they are, and open to visitors.

(Facing the cathedral, go left across the street and walk one block to the next street that's a pedestrian mall. Turn left again, and on the right, there's a restaurant called Dominos that has great sandwiches all day long, and fresh juice and coffee, and menus available in English.)

Cathedral Metropolitana

In front of the Cathedral Metroplitana : When this busker, who had been standing still as a statue, suddenly began to move, these children were startled and jumped back, then giggled.

I'm aways delighted when I encounter examples like this that show how much people are the same the world over.

Statue of Valdivia

On the south side of Plaza de Armas, this statue honours Valdivia, the Spanish conquistador who founded Santiago in 1541.

It faces the house that was at one time his home, and now serves as the main post office.

Week day at the Plaza de Armas

On non-holidays, the Plaza de Armas is full of life and people, dogs and artists, fountains and vendors, especially around the lunch hour.

y ponies that children could mount to have their photos taken.

Celebrating Chile as One Country

The Plaza de Armas was one of the stops for a travelling photo exhibition called Chile en 100 Miradas (Chile in a 100 Looks).

This is a collection of photos by Chilean artists to show that Chile is one country, albeit with many factions.

Metro Central Station

Santiago's Central Station, part of the three-line train system called the Metro.

I took the Metro several times from Centro to El Golf, to look around the trendy shops and restaurants. I found it easy to use, with lovely bright stations, some full of art work.

Wine lovers can head to El Golf, to the only Ritz-Carlton in South America. Its Wine 365 restaurant is believed to have the largest wine list in the country, offering 365 Chilean wines, one for each day of the year.

Santiago's Mountain views

From downtown, the views to the mountains are limited by distance, tall buildings and smog.

This inland city is in a 'bowl' that traps pollutants. For great views right from your room window, look for a hotel in El Golf.

Artists Market on Almeda

Centro Artisano Santa Lucia is a very large and many-stalled artists market, full of knitwear, T-shirts and small leather goods. It's located across Alameda from the National Library and Cerro Santa Lucia.

Centro de Exposicion de Arte Indigena, another native handicrafts market, with goods brought from all regions of Chile, is located just outside the gates of Cerro Santa Lucia. This shop offers more costly, higher-end crafts, knitwear and jewellery.

Chile National Library

This lovely buillding is the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile (National Library of Chile) on Alameda. I wandered in to admire the detailing, and was surprised to see the lovely cafe on the main floor.

The buses in the foreground are both new municipal buses and the older, polluting, private ones that are to be phased out.

Fundador Hotel room

I stayed at the Fundador, in Santiago. The bath tub was the smallest I had ever seen, but I checked a few other rooms, and they had normal size tubs.

The staff were most friendly, and spoke several languages (though French was not usually one of them). This hotel is well-located in the Paris-Londres barrio for walkabout sightseeing in the historic Centro and its parks and museums.

Fundador Hotel view out the window

The facing street had stalls of vendors during the day, the parallel street was mostly pedestian, not a through road to Alameda at the end of the block.

The west exposure meant the room got quite hot during the afternoons, but after sunset, there was always a cool breeze.
(Get more information about the Fundador Hotel)

Barrio Paris-Londres

Behind the hotel (to the left in the above photo), a series of cobbled, now mainly pedestrian streets wound through this old district.

It's well-located for sightseeing on foot, and a few steps from the University of Chile subway (Metro) station.

* The Museo Chileno De Arte Precolombino has pre-Colombian textiles and artefacts (20 minutes' walk). See also Chile Travel Story and Wine Valleys