Valparaíso and its magical energy
Messy, colorful and a poetic chaos, Valparaíso is a wonderful UNESCO World Heritage. A treasure on the coast and Chile’s most unusual city. Pablo Neruda, who drew much inspiration from this hard-working port town, said it best:
‘Valparaíso, how absurd you are…you haven’t combed your hair, you’ve never had time to get dressed, life has always surprised you.’.
Valparaíso is a major city, seaport, and educational center in the county or commune of Valparaíso, Chile. It has a combination of its chaotic cerros (hills), some of the best street art in Latin America (graffiti in general), sinuous streets, alleys and stairways piled high with crumbling mansions. And it’s clear why some foreigners are spending more time here than in Santiago. The city offers top restaurants and hotels, and Valpo’s nightlife please all type of people.
What are the most popular attractions among the backpackers?
Valpo its a very cultural city and its provides us a lot of things to do during the day (and night). The most exciting thing is touring the city, going up, down and get lost in this maze, because you will always find a great place to relax, buy, admire, drink or eat something. There you can find free walking tour, Graffiti Tours (it was the best!) and Beer Tours. And is pretty easy to go to Viña del Mar, Reñaca (sandboarding) or Concon (surfing), cities that are really close by.
What are the “must see” attractions?
- La Sebastiana (Pablo Neruda’s house — one of the best view of the city)
- Plaza Sotomayor
- Parque Cultural Valparaíso (used to be a prision at the dictatorship period)
- Museo a Cielo abierto
- Puerto Neighborhood
- Habor boat tours
- Paseo 21 de Mayo
- Cerros Concepción and Alegre (and their elevators)
- Mirador Diego Portales (balcony)
- Ascensor Polanco
- National Congress of Chile
- Casablanca Tour (Wineyards 30 minutes from Valpo)
What are the best restaurants for backpackers? What those restaurants has to offer? (Mediterranean/Italian/Caribbean/ any another type of cuisine).
At Valpo you will find a lot of coffee shops, italian, mediterranean and seafood restaurants, and a lot of them are very good!
For low-budget travelers, there are a lot of options of markets, bakery (chileans do eat a lot of bread) and supermarkets to buy whatever you want. And its pretty common to buy some empanadas or sopaipillas and eat on the street, because its cheap and easy to find.
The are some good places (and not so expensive) where the travelers go: Café Vinilo (chilean cuisine), Norma’s (chilean cuisine), Café del Poeta, El Desayunador (breakfast), Calleta El Membrillo (Seafood), Malandrino (italian cuisine) and, for me this was the best one, El Peral (mediterranean cuisine). El Peral has an amazing and relaxing enviroment, the food and drinks are very good and the staff soooooo nice (this is really hard to find n Chile).
What are the best nightclubs? What did you specially liked about them?
It’s funny because almost all nightclubs are at the same area, the puerto/bellavista neighborhood. It is one next to the other, so what people usually do is: previa (warming up before going out) and them go to this zone and check which one looks better for the night.
Some good options are: Mero Club, La Sala, Blue Valpo, Oceano Bar, El Playa and El Proa. The last one was my favorite, because you can sign the list and get in for free (through facebook), it has 3 floors, and each one they play one type of music (salsa, bachata, reggaeton, pop, trend music, depends of DJ’s mood) and you drink for fair-enough price. The only thing is it can get pretty crowd on weekends, a mix of foreigners and locals and when people drink to much (they do it a lot) the place can get a little intense (people pushing, etc).
What are the best bars? What did you specially liked about them?
The best one is Altamira Brewery (amazing craft beer and good music, such as classics and jazz), followed by La Playa (oldest long-running), La piedra feliz. But Valpo it is a very bohemian city, any place you will find a nice bar and good food.
What are the coolest places around the city you’ve visited?
Parque Cultural Valparaíso (used to be a prision at the dictatorship period), Museo a Cielo abierto, and, definatelly Cerro Alegre with the Graffiti tour, in this tour I got to know and understand more about culture and Valpo’s lifestyle “organized chaos”.
Where backpackers usually continue after the place you’ve been?
Viña del Mar (5km away) or Santiago (120km away).
From where they are usually coming?
We will see people from all over the world at Valpo, but there are some peaks during the year: lots of brazilians and argentineans (from dec-feb), germans, americans, english and australians all year along.
What did you feel was missing in the city? What could make your visit to a perfect one?
More touristic information distributed at the city. Despite of that I really loved and felt at home.
Eventually, please write in your own words your opinion and describe your personal experience (how did you feel, what you’ll never forget etc.)
After travelling for a couple of months, Valpo was the first place that I felt like home. I felt welcome and by now it is the city the I could live.
The people are smiling and it like they are not worried about time. There are culture, colors and vivacity spread all around the city. Watching the sun going down, the color of the house it an imagine that I won’t forget.
Cheers,
Ariadne Nardeli (Brazilian Backpacker Researcher for Selina Hostel)
