We began our day by crossing the river (below is a picture of the river, it’s very, very low this time of year)
and walking over to the Cerro San Cristobal. We took the funicular to the top. Here’s a picture of the city from the the funicular.
On the top of the hill is an outdoor church with a 14m-high Virgin Mary. We explored the area for awhile.
We took a gondola back down the hill.
We have another day in Santiago when we come back from Easter Island and before our flight that evening. Someone in Puerto Varas told us we should go to Valparaiso so we are trying to organize a visit for our last day. We decided we would rent a car on our return to Santiago and drive there. So after Cerro San Cristobal, we visited the Hertz office and booked a car.
We went back to Barrio Lastarria for lunch and then went to Pablo Neruda’s house. He was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician, winner of the Nobel Prize for his poetry and lived from 1904-1973. It was very interesting but we couldn’t take pictures inside the house.
That evening we went back to Barrio Lastarria for dinner. There are a lot of restaurants in Barrio Lastarria so we never repeated a restaurant.