20th December






The second day we went by bus (1 ½ hours) to the nice town Valparaiso at the Pacific Ocean. We took a few times the very old ascencors to visit the steeper parts of the town. Nice experience.

Dinner again in Santiago where we more or less finish this part of the round the world tour (since the following two days will mostly be spent in planes from Santiago to Brussels via Madrid) and unfortunately also this blog (not much to report from our stay in Belgium, we fear).

We hope you enjoyed shearing our travel experiences with us.


Hasta luego!


Jane, Bob, Laura, Deborah and David

19th December






The first full day in Santiago, we visited the town: the funicular and teleferico in Cerro San Cristobal (great for kids), an exhibition of the famous Mexican painters and artist couple (first half 20th century) Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and a visit to the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. Of course the kids especially Deborah was bored to death by the museum!
And of course wandering in town and devouring some helados(ice cream) along the way and in the evening we had dinner in a nice restaurant in Barrio Brazil.

18th December












For a change we took the train to travel from Talca to Santiago: fast and comfortable. We arived around lunchtime in a very nice Aparthotel, called Lastarria. With two bedrooms and lots of space, even with cupboards and a bathroom where you can turn around. In the afternoon we had lunch in the central market (full of fish restaurants)and visited part of central Santiago (Plaza de Armas, La Moneda, …). We had a stroll to the president's place and i must say Santiagi is a nice and clean town ,much better than i expected.
For once we decided to have dinner in the apartment , considering all the luxury we had found in it. Have a good evening and alk to you soon

16 and 17th December








The trip to Talca was quite an expedition: 8 hours by bus! Not that we are masochistic, but it was just the only way to do it.
In Talca we arrived in a modest but friendly Hotel, del Rio. Which was good quality for the money we paid per night! This has not been the case in some of the other hotels that we stayed in.
In he evening we discovered that no restaurant in town opens before 20h00! but we finally found somewhere to eat.

The next day we did what we came to do: visiting the wine region. Bob was delighted and we did two wine tours and three wine tastings. Chilean wines (at least the top category) are really good and they have some great varieties, such as Carmenere, that you cannot find in Europe. We ended up with 12 extra bottles and some 18 extra kilos to our luggage that was already quite impressive. Let’s see what Iberia Airlines (Santiago Madrid – Brussels) and the Belgian customs think of all this …

Talca itself is nothing special and we spent a quite evening, getting ready for our final long journey in Chile, Talca – Santiago.

14th and 15th December










We spent two days in Pucon, the activity centre of Chile (mini Queenstown of New Zealand). Accommodation was in Gudenschwager Hotel. Nice place but not very friendly reception and as in a lot of hotels in Chile, with very small bathrooms and next to no cupboard space.
Highlights were the visit of the Villarica volcano and the Quimey-co hot spring. We also visited a 75 m high waterfall called Sala de Chine.Pucon is a nice little town, between the lake and the volcano. With surprisingly few tourists for this tile of the year. Meaning many empty restaurants and tourists agencies. Apparently, high season in Chile is January and February.

Tomorrow we are heading for Talca and the wine region (at last, says Bob), after an 8-hour bus trip to which we are not looking forward to!

13th December







Today we visited Valdivia and surroundings. In the town we went to the museum and the fish market where huge sea lions were waiting for scraps. Quite impressive!
In the afternoon we went to Niebla and took a ferry to Corral where we visited a 17th century Spanish fort.
We closed the day at the Kunstmann brewery where we had a nice dinner and Bob did a tasting tour of the 7 types of beers they are brewing. Some of them can match without difficulty their Belgian equivalents!
Tomorrow we are off to Pucon.

12th December

Not much fun: the trip from Puerto Natales to Valdivia took us from 7h00 until 18h30 (bus – plane – bus). We had a short stroll in the nice and pleasant town and a good meal in Agridulce Restaurant. The Unelen Apartment hotel is finally giving us some space (hotel rooms and bathrooms in Chile are in generally very small)!
Although Deborah still suffered the whole day, she seems to have recovered towards the end of the day. Off to bed