Valparaiso- Oct 25th
What a beautiful little city spread across steep hills along the sea coast with it's colorful buildings and art. The bus took us all over the city and up and down the coast giving us a good flavor of the area.Valparaiso was a major port before the Panama Canal for ships from Europe to go around the Drake Passage and to the US west coast during the Gold Rush. We saw alot of European ancestry here from Germany, UK, and Spain. People came for trade and stayed. In fact we have a relative on the Johnson side, "Santiago" Longton who lived here in the 1870s and was an exporter. The purple house is an example of houses some of the British lived in.
This area is earthquake prone with the last one in 1985. The downtown area has a British and especially Scottish area of old buildings for commerce and English lessons.
The sea here is beautiful, cold, powerful and mostly dangerous in the beach areas sue to undertow. Remember the waters here come up from Antartica. It's not a good area for water sports but beautiful to look at. We did not see many slums or trashy areas. We found out that Chile is more of a middle class country and this place is akin to San Diego or San Francisco with the temperate climate.
What a beautiful little city spread across steep hills along the sea coast with it's colorful buildings and art. The bus took us all over the city and up and down the coast giving us a good flavor of the area.Valparaiso was a major port before the Panama Canal for ships from Europe to go around the Drake Passage and to the US west coast during the Gold Rush. We saw alot of European ancestry here from Germany, UK, and Spain. People came for trade and stayed. In fact we have a relative on the Johnson side, "Santiago" Longton who lived here in the 1870s and was an exporter. The purple house is an example of houses some of the British lived in.
This area is earthquake prone with the last one in 1985. The downtown area has a British and especially Scottish area of old buildings for commerce and English lessons.
Vino Del Mar is a beautiful more modern area of Valparaiso with tree lined streets and everything within walking distance. Many condos are rented out to vacationers in South America.
We visited the Fonk museum with artifacts from nearby Easter Island and many ancient pots and tools from Peru and Chile's indigenous people.
A mummy and shrunken heads.
