Valparaíso
An amphitheatre of colourful tin houses tumbling to the Pacific, century-old funiculars and street art on every corner: South America's most poetic port.
Suggested stay — 1 to 2 nights
Valparaíso isn't visited, it is paced out: 42 hills (cerros) linked by painted staircases and some fifteen ascensores, listed wooden funiculars climbing from the port since 1883. Cerros Alegre and Concepción hold the essentials — monumental murals, cafés in Victorian houses, viewpoints over the bay — and La Sebastiana, Pablo Neruda's ship-shaped house, crowns it all with its glorious bric-a-brac.
By car, Valpo is a stopover, not a playground: you drop the vehicle in a guarded car park and continue on foot. The city slots naturally between Santiago and the coast: the Casablanca valley and its sauvignon blanc vineyards on the way, Isla Negra and the most moving of Neruda's houses 45 minutes south. One night on the spot for the evening light and the morning mists over the bay.
Don't miss
- Cerros Alegre and Concepción on foot: murals, painted stairways, miradors
- The El Peral or Reina Victoria ascensor, period wooden funiculars
- La Sebastiana, Neruda's lighthouse of a house
- The Casablanca valley en route: a tasting at an estate (Casas del Bosque, Matetic)
Our tips on the ground
- Don't drive into the cerros: 20 % gradients, treacherous one-way lanes, impossible parking. Guarded car park in the flat lower town (el plan) or at the hotel, then everything on foot and by ascensor.
- Stay on the touristed cerros after dark and keep the camera discreet in the lower town: Valpo is superb and poor at once, and snatch thefts happen.
- Sleep on cerro Alegre rather than in beach-resort Viña del Mar: Valpo's magic plays at dawn and dusk, once the day-trippers have gone.
Our flagship guide — €29
Guide available“Chile on Your Own”, the complete edition, is out
10 chapters: day-by-day itineraries, driving and transport, a costed budget and checklists — the same method as our Namibia guide.
The guide is currently written in French — an English edition is in the works.
Before you go
Readers' questions about Valparaíso
Is Valparaíso safe?
Like any great port: cerros Alegre and Concepción, busy and well trodden, are walked serenely by day and into the evening; the lower town (el plan) and the outlying hills call for the classic vigilance — nothing flashy, no deserted alleys at night, an emptied car in a guarded car park. Thousands walk it every day with no worse incident than aching calves.
Should you visit Santiago or head straight to Valparaíso?
With little time, Valpo wins: more singular, more photogenic, 1.5 h from the airport on an easy motorway. Santiago deserves a day for the Museum of Memory, the central market and the views from cerro San Cristóbal — ideal at the circuit's end before the flight home, rather than at the start when jet lag blurs everything.