Santiago

[GingerCat]

As we're going to be in Mendoza, as part of our trip through Argentina, we thought we would take advantage of the proximity to Chile, and take the bus over the Andes to Santiago. The travel agent we are working with has recommended that we spend two full days in Santiago ... one, to do a day trip to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, and the second to walk around the city.

My question is ... is that enough time, or should we be spending another day? Anyone have a suggested itinerary?

From Santiago we will be flying down to Puerto Montt, and then taking the bus back over the border in order to visit the Bariloche area.

Any and all comments are most welcome.

 

[elhombresinnombre]

As with so many things, the answer is 'It depends.'

If your type of tourism falls into the 'if it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium' category then two days will be fine; if you enjoy museums, art galleries, architecture (there's still some left after the earthquakes) history, etc then you'll need rather more.

Try and spend a Sunday evening in the vicinity of the Plaza de Armas: all of Santiago come out to do their thing and it is an awesome entertainment just watching them or joining in. If you love books then the street market, also Sunday, shouldn't be missed. That's up from the Alemeda along Estado and streets around there IIRC (If I don't RC, hopefully someone on here will correct me.)

 

[icatheri]

Pablo Neruda's house "La Chascona" is definitely worth a visit! Plus it's in the Bellavista neighborhood which is cute to walk around in. Pretty sure it's closed on Mondays just fyi.

Also the typical tourist thing is to go up to the statue on San Cristobal, but if it's a particularly smoggy day (which happens a lot in Santiago) it's really not worth your time!