Santiago

I’d never really thought of Santiago as much more than an unavoidable stopover on the way to far more interesting places like Patagonia or Easter Island.  So when I found myself there for a day due to a travel delay, I thought I’d just relax in the hotel with my book.

But the skies were blue and the sun was shining, and I remembered with gratitude all those emergency bottles of Chilean wine bought late at night from the corner shop when I lived in England, so I decided the very least I could do was to have a little look around.

I saw La Moneda Palace (main photo), went to the top of Santa Lucia Hill and San Cristobal Hill, had an all-too-brief glance around the museum to see some pre-Columbian art, and by a stroke of luck happened upon the quite extraordinary changing of the guard outside the presidential palace.

I also did some wine tasting and had a tour of the gardens, park and the outside of what was the summer residence of the Concha y Toro family towards the end of the 19th Century, and then a few early evening cheeky “Gin Tonics” and cocktails in a fabulous tapas bar that I sadly can’t remember the name of now, due to the aforementioned wine and gin tasting 🙂

So all in all, I ended up having an unexpectedly marvellous day out.  Hic.