Day 21 - Santiago, Chile

Day 21- Santiago, Chile

After a good breakfast we left our good hotel of "Hotel tinto Botique", and walked along the interesting street of Pio Nono. This area had been busy with diners when we arrived late the night before. After working out the ATM to get some local money, we purchased a Hop-On-Off bus, as we had limited time and it seemed to go to the major sights.

The bus tour took us past the funicular which runs up the hill to Cerro San Cristóbal. We planned to do this climb at the end of the day.

We spent some time at Plaza de Armas (main square), looking at some national monuments such as the Cathedral, the Central Post Office and the City Hall of Santiago. A brass band was planning Creedence Clearwater Revival tunes very well.
Next stop was the Government Palace "La Moneda", on Plaza de la Constitution. This is where the USA backed military coup of General Augusto Pinochet occurred on 1973-09-11 and the socialist president Salvador Allende, who subsequently committed suicide. Being in high school, this left an impression on me, but didn't understand why.
We passed the Santa Lucia Hill, where the city was founded in 1541, by a spaniard Pedro de Valdivia.
The tour continued past the San Francisco Church built in the 1622 and one of the oldest Spanish Colonial building. It was damaged by earthquakes in 1647, 1730 and 1751.
We continued on the bus passed the Las Condes residential area and large Parque Arauco shopping Centre.
At the end of the bus tour, we took the funicular up the 250m ascent to see the Virgin Mary statue on top of  San Cristóbal hill. It gave a great view as we enjoyed an ice cream.

After a good dinner in a bellavista restaurants ,we took a walk along the river and park. Then we caught a hire car to the airport from the hotel.

Our trip home had started.