On our first full day in Valparaiso we both awoke early as a result of the mangling of our internal clocks over the past week. Scott took advantage and set out to take some photos at sunrise. We joined the tips for tours walking tour at 10am and saw many sites that we would have completely missed. After a brief walk down one of the oldest streets in town we took a city bus on a windy bouncy trip to a viewpoint at the top of the city. The tour then took us through several cerros (literally translates to hills but means neighborhoods in this context) as well as to an old prison. The prison was used as a public prison up until the regime of Augusto Pinochet. During this time the prison housed multiple times the number of prisoners it was meant to hold and the large communal area around the prison was used for public torture. The prison returned to normal use until it was replaced in 1999. The building has now been repurposed in the most meaningful of ways. It has been rearchitected to accommodate spaces for artists of all kinds. From dance, to sound studios, rooms to paint, and rooms to create digital media the reworking of this place was moving. It is incredible to see the fruits of a creative forward thinking vision and how it can improve the lives of everyone, those making art and those absorbing.
Our walking tour continued past a couple of large and elaborate cemeteries, past endless alleys of Street Art, and eventually back to the tour office where we enjoyed the famous coke and wine cocktail. It was early in the afternoon the hunger was growing after the 5 miles of walking so we stopped at a roadside stand and ordered way too many empanadas. Despite the abundance of empanadas did not stop us from grabbing lunch at one of the restaurants that claims to be the oldest in Valparaiso. Cinzano was a good experience, the wine was delicious and the food filling. The days of small portions in south east asia are certainly a thing of the past.
After lunch we decided to walk off the feast and climbed to another cerro, one featuring the house of famous poet Pablo Nureda. We did not tour the house itself, mostly due to mixed reviews online, but spent some time cooling and relaxing in his garden. Our walk back down took us through the open sky museum which was underwhelming compared with the street art seen in the morning. Eventually we picked up some food for breakfast, a bottle of wine, and some snacks and made our way back to the hostal. We spent the rest of the day snacking and drinking wine which is a fun way to enjoy Chile.
Our walking tour continued past a couple of large and elaborate cemeteries, past endless alleys of Street Art, and eventually back to the tour office where we enjoyed the famous coke and wine cocktail. It was early in the afternoon the hunger was growing after the 5 miles of walking so we stopped at a roadside stand and ordered way too many empanadas. Despite the abundance of empanadas did not stop us from grabbing lunch at one of the restaurants that claims to be the oldest in Valparaiso. Cinzano was a good experience, the wine was delicious and the food filling. The days of small portions in south east asia are certainly a thing of the past.
After lunch we decided to walk off the feast and climbed to another cerro, one featuring the house of famous poet Pablo Nureda. We did not tour the house itself, mostly due to mixed reviews online, but spent some time cooling and relaxing in his garden. Our walk back down took us through the open sky museum which was underwhelming compared with the street art seen in the morning. Eventually we picked up some food for breakfast, a bottle of wine, and some snacks and made our way back to the hostal. We spent the rest of the day snacking and drinking wine which is a fun way to enjoy Chile.
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