Chasing Summer –

January 12-13

Valparairso

This city is amazing in many ways. She reminds me of an old lady who was once wealthy and has fallen on hard times. She is a little threadbare and dirty, but you can see what once was.

It is a city of hills and funiculars and art. Everything in reach is painted or tagged by budding artists. Some of the street art is amazingly well done, and some are tags and roughly done colors.

In the neighbourhoods of Cerro Alegre and Concepcion, district 2, many artists have galleries to display their work and sell their best pieces.

The artwork is eclectic from more traditional paintings and sculptures to every variation of subject matter and style.

The entire community is an eye overstimulation and hills. The stairs seem to be a favorite canvas for portraits, fun colors, or even piano keys.

Climbing up and down the stairs so that I wouldn’t miss anything was a workout, but it was worth it to see all the little and big treasures along the way.

We did take one of the funiculars just for fun, and it only cost 300 pesos or 30 cents US to go up or down. Several people told me that they came across funiculars that were inoperational and hadn’t worked for years, but they were not in the main tourist areas. The city has 22 funiculars but only 9 are operational today.

Casablanca Valley

About an hour’s drive from Valparaiso is the Casablanca Valley wine region. Here, there are several vineyards that produce Chilean white wines.

40 residents rented a bus to take us on a circuit through 3 wineries for the day for $10 each. Of course, we needed to pay extra for whatever tastings or tours that we did.

Of the 3 wineries, I did 2, and if I could redo things, I would have chosen differently. I visited Casa del Bosque and Bodegas RE and didn’t go to Kingsman. Casa del Bosque was great and had tasty wines. They also had an amazing-looking restaurant, but ten of us going to Bodegas decided to wait to eat.

Big mistake. Bodegas didn’t have very great wine and only a small cheese plate for lunch. It would have been better to either stay in the first place or have gone to the third winery that had good reviews. Even so, it was a great day visiting and sampling wine.

The next two days will be sea days, followed by Puerto Montt and Castro ports.