Thursday 24 September 2009

Walking around Santiago city


If you are a tourist and you are here, in Santiago, I'm going to tell you where you can go to know the past and the present of this city, walking quietly through the downtown, knowing the most typical and historical areas.
Founded in 1541, Santiago has a hill that was very important in that period. The Santa Lucía hill, named by the mapuche people as Huelén hill, was a strategic point in the Conquest War. In the end of XIX century, the superintendent Benjamín Vicuña, designed a beautiful public walking that you can tour through it stairs.
If you want to know the old splendour of the upper classes in the end of XIX century and begin of XX, you can visit the Republica neirborhood, starting by the Dieciocho street. There, you will see a lot of big houses of neoclassical style that shows the European taste of the epoch.
Now, if you want to know the cultural current movement, and you want to drink quietly a cup of coffee in the free air, you can go to walk through the Bellas Artes neirborhood and the Lastarria neirborhood. There, you'll find a lot of coffee houses and small and vanguard stores where buy design stuffs. Obviously, you have to visit the Fine Arts Museum to watch Chilean and foreign arts.
Then, you can go to the main square and know how the Chilean people really are. Like the rest of Hispanic colonial cities, Santiago has a main square surrounded by the Cathedral and administrative buildings, all of them from colonial period. There you can visit the National Historical Museum, the singular shop galleries Portal Fernández Concha and Bulnes.
Finally, you don't have to forget to visit the most important museums and galleries of colonial and modern art. Colonial and religious arts: San Francisco museum, La Merced museum and, a couple of minutes out of the centre by the subway, the Recoleta Dominica. Chilean art: the MAPA, Centro Cultural La Moneda, for examples.
Well, here you have a lot of good ideas to spend your time in Santiago. I hope you enjoy it!

3 comments:

  1. Portal Fernandez concha rules!! you can eat for so few money thats cool, i liked the places that you suggest because are so cultural!! walking for santiago it great i'm agree
    kisses!!!

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  2. I forgot to mention Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna!

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  3. "Walking quietly through the downtown"... I'm so agree with you Úrsula; that's the best way to know everyplace.

    See you soon, is very nice to be your classmate :) Kisses!

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