Santiago is a city surrounded by the Andes Mountains, containing about a third of Chile’s population with a huge five million people, it is a very big city.
The center of Santiago is mostly all historical buildings built around the 18th & 19th century, the Vegas hotel witch our family stayed at was located in this part of town (photo). Tough it was only about a block away from the main street it was in a very quiet neighborhood.
Santiago is a very pedestrian friendly city. I would say that it is a cross between Las Angles & Paris. It is clean, has nice sidewalks and has allot of pedestrian walkways. These are big roads reserved for pedestrians only.
In Santiago all of the people are very friendly even though their spanish is a little hard to understand. For example on our first day in Chile an old man stopped us and told us that we should put sunscreen on so we would not get skin cancer, so we walked rite into a pharmacy and bought some.
In Santiago there are lots of old sculptures, fountains, parks and plazas. Some of these parks are on hills or Cerros. Since some of the hills in and around Santiago there are these lifts called Funiculars. They are set on a slant and they have multiple cars.
After spending 6 days in Santiago we caught one of the comfortable buses out to a town called Valpariso. More on that soon!
Posted by Lily Johannessen
