Santiago, Chile - part 1

I loved Santiago. I hope I get to get back to Chile and get a chance to go all the way north to the Atacama Desert, all the way south to the Torres del Paine (Patagonia) and all the way outboard and west to Rapa Nui (Easter Island)....
For now all I saw was Santiago.
I found it a very easy city to visit. The people were very pleasant. Spanish turned out to be as easy as I had hoped it to be for a Francophone mixing with friendly people. It was a real pleasure all around. I walked miles and miles and had a great time. I arrived at the peak of cheery and strawberry season. Food was nice and easy to obtain there was small street markets, restaurants and large grocery stores everywhere. Everything was so easy. It was a very relaxing city to be in.

Santiago is a very nice combination of old and new building. It is very clean, you see street sweeper all day long everywhere.

Here are some views of the town.

Just a typical street with a small plaza.

In town there is a very nice big park (called Cerro Santa Lucia). It is a very peaceful place to go and spend some time in the shade after a nice morning coffee.

As one would expect in South America, or at least as I fully expected, one of the hills in the town (and there are several) has a large statue of Mary protecting the town (the tiny white dot on top of the hill in the photo). This is also the hill of Parque Metropolitano) another great place to go to. You can take the "teleferico" to go up the steep hill and get great views. The park is quite crowded on the week end but it is so big that it does not feel overly so. 

Another of the hills of Santiago. (For those interested the little bit of rock I could see was obviously a mixture of andesite and volcanic breccias etc, no surprise there)

I don't know if I can convince you but in the background you can see the Andes. The humidity level in the air was quite high while I was there and I never had a really good view of the Andes, but it was nicely compensated by a fabulous view from the plane while flying to Buenos Aires from Santiago. What a flight! if you fly that route, aim for day time with a window seat.