Valparaíso Trips & Tours

Valparaíso Trips & Tours

Multi-coloured, quixotic, haphazard perfection awaits in Chile’s second-largest city

Careering over a dozen hilltops, almost perfectly in the middle of the country’s vertiginous coastline, the city of Valparaíso is offbeat Chile through and through. In its 19th-century heyday as the long-awaited stopover for ships travelling East to West, British and European immigrants ensured that grand, Victorian houses were ten-a-penny. Cue the arrival of the thunder-stealing Panama Canal, however, and fortunes faded fast. Today, it’s a higgledy-piggledy maze of rainbow-coloured houses and constructions that tumble down over, up and around the cerros (hills), linked by clanking funiculars and wooden staircases. Poets, artists and writers have replaced the European gentry, their bohemian works displayed on walls and streets all over town, and students spill from the university, carefree and relaxed. Spend your days wandering the UNESCO-listed quarters, getting lost in the museums and handicraft shops and admiring the views. By night, tuck into ceviche overlooking the boats it probably came from, accompanied by a glass of red from the vines beyond. Some might say Valpo is unexpectedly charming, but actually, it’s really just.. charming.