Valparaíso day tour

 

Today we have booked a small bus tour to the city of Valparaiso which is about 1 1/2 hours away from Santiago.  Valparaiso has been designated as a Unisco World Heritage Site.  Started off being picked up in a van at our hotel, only to be transported to a large bus.  Wendy especially was not happy.  This is going to be a long day.

Vineyards on the way to Valapraiso

Stopped for the wine tasting part of the tour, which was really a big market where there was a large selection of wines with a couple you could taste.  So many tour buses stopped here.

Our bus, it was easy to find at least

So many beautiful murals in this city.  We were dropped off at the top of the city, and walked a few km to the bottom where the bus met us.  

Even the stairs were painted

This one was amazing, so lifelike

Piano keys on this stairway

From a lookout into the harbour, harbour was not pretty

Andre and 1 other woman on our tour did this slide

Army/Navy building

Main square full of vendors at the bottom of the hill, no time to visit

Vina del Mar, a beautiful beach spot where we stopped for lunch

Castle on the water

Lunch was not included on the tour.  Our guide took us to a spot all set up for us, at the back of the restaurant.  Quite expensive, and not really what we wanted, found the guide outside, asked what time we were to meet up, and off we go to find something cheaper/lighter and more to our liking.

Found this place where you order your protein, veggies, starch etc, and they prepare and call your name.  No English menu here, luckily I think it was the owner spoke English and he filled out this form for us with everything we wanted.  He has been to Montreal to change planes, was excited that we were Canadian.

Lunch beer

Beautiful beach.  Signs up that it was closed for swimming, but many were in, but not very deep.  Waves were pretty big, we think that is why it was closed, rip tides

Luckily if you lived up top you had a funicular to get up!

This is about as far out as we saw anyone go

Andre had an ice cream here, no idea what hot ice was, but they had ice cream

Back in Santiago and we decide on Sushi for supper.  Really good, but so much!

One more ice cream stop at Burger King on the way back to the hotel