Places to Go in Valparaíso

This is the view of Valparaíso from the top of Cerro Alegre

Valparaíso is a grand city with a lot to offer visitors. There are some touristic areas that are wonderful to visit. These places are very safe and some vendors speak English to help assist the tourists, although their English tends to be quite basic (just what they need to know to sell products) and usually has a heavy chilean accent.

The blue building in the back is the
 Armada at the Plaza Sotomayor

Anyhow, the places that I recommend are along the farther end of the city. Well, it's far to me since I live in Viña, but the reality is that it's more like the middle of the city. If you take Metro Valparaíso, you will always ride it in Direction Puerto because you will be getting off at the Puerto Station. When you leave the station, if you look around, you will notice that on one side there is the ocean and on the other side is a plaza. This is Plaza Sotomayor. It has office buildings, cafés and the Armada (Naval building). This is a great place to take some pictures and enjoy some good coffee. There is also a tour that starts here twice a day every day. It is called Tours 4 Tips. You can either go at 10am or 3pm. It is about a 3 hour walk around the area with historical facts about Valparaíso. It is all in English, and I recommend doing it. It takes you to Cerro Alegre, Cerro Concepción, Cerro Bellavista and the port. Which are all places that I suggest visiting.

This is the acensor/funicular/elevator that
you would take to get to the top of Cerro
Alegre to see the view of the picture at the
top of this entry.

Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción are very close together and are very good for tourist visits. These hills (cerros) mainly consisted of foreigners when they started building. They are filled with beautiful graffiti and houses. If you go to Plaza Sotomayor, looking at the Armada building, walk towards it and head to the left. You will see a funicular/acensor/elevator that is usually working that you can take to the top and walk around to view the hill. At the top is a great view of Valparaíso and the port. Absolutely beautiful.

Palacio Baburizza (Museum
on Cerro Alegre)

As I said in my last blog, you can also find one of Pablo Neruda's houses in Valparaíso. It is in Cerro Bellavista, pretty darn close to the top. Cerro Bellavista also contains some of the Free Air Museum, which is a walking tour of graffiti that was paid for to try to beautify the city and stop the buildings form being tagged, which is very common in Chile. I recommend trying to at least see a few of these master pieces because they are absolutely incredible.

One of my favorite pieces of graffiti that is part of the Free Air Museum.

If you are not feeling so confident in doing this on your own or with a couple of friends, please take the Tour 4 Tips. The average tip is 5000-10000 Chilean Pesos (10-20 USD) for this wonderful tour. This tour also exists in Santiago, starting at the Plaza de Armas. The Santiago tours are also at 10am and 3pm, but the tours are different. If you use the Metrored (there are several lines, use the Red one for this), you would get off at the station Universidad de Chile, after that, just ask where the Plaza de Armas is, and head that way. I have not taken this tour, but I'm sure it is just as wonderful as the one in Valparaíso and I recommend doing as many tours as you can, especially if you want to learn about Chile's history and you don't have much time here.

View of Vaparaíso from the water.