Santiago Day 1

It's a long way up.

View from the top

I don't know what I was expecting from South America. I knew Santiago, Chile was a big city. It feels european. It has a lot of green spaces, which are green even though it is the dead of winter (apparently in summer, they're brown because it's so hot and dry). The weather is funny. Dress in spring jacket, gloves, and scarf, your'e too hot in the sun and take it all off. Standing in the shade, you're too cold and put it all back on. The mountains are everywhere. Santiago is in a bowl surrounded by mountains, which is great for pretty scenery but bad for trapping air pollution. Chileans seem to have the same sense of unyielding ownership of sidewalks that Swedes have - they aren't going to get out of your way to let you pass - it's a bit of a game of Uncle.

We started our tour with a walk to the subway, then an easy ride to Bellavista district and another walk to San Cristobel Hill. San Cristobel came to fame in 1923 with the construction of a Funicular. It is now a national monument. The hill is also the site of a zoo. We found it to be significantly busier than PP expected yesterday afternoon. In addition to the requisite stray dogs wandering and sleeping everywhere, the entrance and line up for the Funicular is home to many stuff stands. If you are looking for hats or mitts or masks or kids toys or snack food, there's a vendor happy to sell it to you. After waiting in a very long line for a very long time, it is our turn to get pulled up the side of the cliff. At the top, the view of the mountains and the city is beautiful. The big draw, other than the view, is the enormous statue of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. She watches over the city similar to the Christ the Redeemer statue that watches over Rio in Brazil. 

Time for lunch in Bellavista. There's a square full of restaurants and we found one called House in the Air or Casa en el aire. Here, regardless of the temperature, people eat outside and so did we. Sopapillas and grilled fish - perfect afternoon snack.

Santiago Metropolitain Cathedral

Now back to the subway and on to Place des Armes (de la independencia something something something. This is a very large pedestrian square, surrounded by museums and a magnificent cathedral that dates from the mid 1500s. We toured the Museo National to learn more about the coloured history of Chile. Took some work though - all the captions were in spanish so we had to do some deciphering. Next up, the Fish Market. Housed in a beautiful old building with a beautiful ceiling, the fish market is quite literally stall after stall of fish vendors. I'd like to know what they do with it all if they don't sell it, or for that matter, how old the fish we saw actually was. We saw 3 white cats wandering around inside, having snack, and they didn't seem to be at all bothered by the freshness of the fish. 

Back to the subway. It is now 5:30 on a Friday, and the busy-ness indicator says medium. Ha! We had to wait 4 trains just to squish into a car. It was an up close and personal get to know the people kind of ride. By the time we got back out at our stop, it was dark, and it was cold. Time to switch to the ski jacket before heading back out. 

Dinner. Steak and a nice Caminiera. Tomorrow - las montanas.