This was the first official day of the tour, but the welcome reception and dinner was not until 6 pm, so I had the luxury of sleeping in and enjoying a nice breakfast. Shortly after noon, I walked to the Plaza de Armas. Initially the civic and cultural center of Santiago, it is now the major social hub of the city.

Correo Central de Santiago and Palacio de la Real Audiencia

Municipalidad de Santiago

Catedral Metropolitana

I returned to the hotel for a brief rest and then headed out in a slightly different direction to visit the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts). The oldest art museum in South America, it has Art Nouveau details including balconies and a vaulted ceiling. The museum is located within the Parque Forestal, a large city park that extends past my hotel.

Monument in the Parque Forestal

I also passed Cerro Santa Lucia, a park that was once the strategic defense point for conquistador Pedro de Valdivia and is the place where Santiago was founded in 1541. The “ground level” photo at the bottom of the hill does not show the buildings, fountains or statuary.

Cerro Santa Lucia

We had a nice welcome reception and dinner for the 25 people in our tour group. We retired somewhat early as the next day would be an early and long travel day down to Patagonia.

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• Santiago City Tour

The day started with a bit of drama as I learned that I needed to complete a Chilean agricultural declaration form before boarding my flight to Miami. Typically forms of this kind are given out and completed on the flight entering the country. Fortunately, it only took 15 minutes to get this task completed, and I was able to board my flight on time. Other than this incident, my flight and connection were uneventful. After going through immigration and a canine inspection of my carry-on for smuggled fruits and vegetables, I met with my transport driver and discovered quite a few people in our tour group came in a day early.

The Singular Santiago is a small boutique hotel with large luxurious suites located in the Lastarria neighborhood of Santiago. After a four-hour nap, I headed up to the Roof Top Bar. I enjoyed a glass of sauvignon blanc and a beef stroganoff dinner while taking in the beautiful weather and great views of the city.

————————————————————————————————————————————- Views from my hotel:

————————————————————————————————————————————- Roof Top Bar: