South America-Day 20- Santiago

Though we'll technically fly back through Santiago on the return from Easter Island, we won't be returning downtown to site see so today was the day to do the city center. Starting in the plaza de armes, we saw the beautiful cathedral which ranks toward the top of our ever-growing church list. Right outside on the plaza, we stopped for a few minutes and watched a street soccer tournament that was happening. After that, we wandered a few blocks down a pedestrian walkway and saw the mercado central which is a big (smelly) fish market. Around the corner from the plaza, we also saw the ex national congress building and, a few blocks later, the gubernatorio building. There is construction around many of the sites right now as they are preparing for their bicentennial, as the signs explained. A walk down the street from there was the national library, which is in a beautiful building but unfortunately it was closed when we went by.

One of the more iconic sites in Santiago is Santa Lucia which is a hill that has terraces and a castle built onto it. At the base is the fountain of neptune and as you climb higher, you wind your way up and around passing vista platforms and other small structures until you reach the top which is part of a small castle and you can go up to the tower with views of the surrounding city. Pretty neat and seemingly random in a city where most of the buildings are more modern and it lacks some of the romantic appeal of the buenos aires' architecture for example.

Once we descended, we stopped for lunch at a café around the corner to warm up and then scurried down the street to the bellas artes museum, where we hoped to further defrost. Unfortunately that didn't happen but we did see some nice art, both modern and more colonial. It's in a beautiful building with classical statues on the columns and a glass roof. Slightly reminiscent of the glass work in the d'orsay, but on a much much smaller scale.

We wanted to make sure that we rode the funicular while we are here, so we walked through what turned out to be a lovely park right next to the river, then crossed via the p. nono and made our way through the street fair crowds to the base of the cable car line. This major park is enormous and not only includes the funicular and the statue at the top, but a zoo and tons of trails for hiking and biking. Before 1925, it was just a quarry and empty space, so it's a pretty cool example of urban planning and recreational space. We rode up the funicular (I may or may not have had my eyes closed and a death grip for a while), then stopped at the first viewpoint of the city before climbing up to the statue. Thankfully the day had cleared a bit, so we were able to finally see a bit more of the mountains- so incredible.

Our plan for the evening was to unwind after our full day and we had heard the bar at the W hotel, around the corner from our hotel, was the place to do it. They have a bar on the 21st floor with stellar views, but sadly it's actually under construction right now so we weren't able to see it. Instead, we went to a wine store and a gourmet market called Coquinaria to get a meat and cheese picnic spread, then took a quick dip in the heated hotel pool, before enjoying dinner. Two quick things to note so I don't forget-- we had a bottle of 2009 Amayna Sauvignon Blanc that was barrel fermented that was terrific and also had sauvignon blanc grape juice. Didn't taste like wine, but was so much better than the normal sugary grape juice, so fresh and tasty. It's all in the details:)