While Santiago is the capital of Chile, the most important port lies 2 hours to the west. This was the main port on the west coast prior to the Panama Canal. Now it serves to receive freighters too large for Panama, about 60 cruise ships per year, and is the home of Chile’s Armada (& related naval academies).

Built on about 42 hills, it is an extremely vertical city. Lots of staircases and incredibly steep & narrow roads make for interesting navigation (many roads also cobble-stoned). Between 1883 – 1916, 30 funiculars were built to aid getting around. At first, being European technology, the funiculars were considered the work of the devil. Two of the 7 still functioning were found to be very useful for saving our knees going down.

But what Valparaiso is most famous for in modern times is that it is an artists’ city. Young people love to attend one of several universities here (& are rather disparaging of Santiago) with many studying fine arts. Most every surface is ‘decorated’ in multiple styles and in different media (spray paint, sharpies, acrylic, and mosaic tiles/3D.

We were told that there was a distinction between the street “art” (with artist’s signature) and “graffiti” (tagging) and that the latter group respected the former. We’re not sure that is always the case but we could have done a workshop in “how to graffiti” properly as apparently, there are recognized programs for newbie taggers to learn the craft so as to develop into proper street artists.

graffiti or art?

The city’s architecture now is a mix of 19th century influences from European immigrants, 20th century re-building following a 1906 earthquake that levelled 90% of the city, and more recent emergence of glass towers, even within 19th century preserved facades.

During an evening meander through a nearby neighbourhood, trying to locate a googled sushi place, we came upon a summer fiesta in the plaza:

We walked 26 km, mostly vertical, over the course of 3 days. We finish with some views from high points.