The plan was to
visit the Moneda, the “Governor’s Palace” but it all looked remarkably closed
and on checking Trip Advisor again I found out that tours had to be booked
seven days in advance. Underneath it is a large cultural centre which I had a quick
look round but none of the exhibitions particularly appealed so I didn’t stay
long.
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| La Moneda |
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Statue outside the Cultural Centre:
Not an easy position to support. |
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| Chilean coat of Arms |
Had a quick look inside the Cathedral where there was a service taking place. The building is heavy baroque, as might be expected and didn't particularly appeal to me, much prefer the lighter lines of bath Abbey which I visited a week or so back. However the priest had an excellent voice and the acoustics were far better than Bath Abbey.
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| Inside the Cathedral |
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| Archangel Slaying Satan |
Continued wandering around the central part of the city in the direction
of the Museum of Pre-Columbian Chile which I eventually found. Most impressive
museum beautifully laid out and providing huge amounts of information and displaying
thousands of amazing artifacts from the original inhabitants of the whole of
central and South America.
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| "Boris" Bikes in Santiago |
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| One of Many Street Kiosks |
A history of dozens of peoples over thousands of
years, most of which I am totally ignorant of. Aztecs, Incas and Mayas would be
the only ones I could name. Really too much information to absorb. For instance
I had no idea that a hundred years or so before Columbus arrived the Incas had
conquered Northern Chile and that Santiago was an Inca settlement before the
Spaniards arrived. Sadly the Conquistadors deliberately destroyed much of the
culture of the original inhabitants on the grounds that it was “heathen” and
melted down as many of the gold pieces as they could find. Luckily they missed
quit a bit that ended up in the museum. After a few hours I was somewhat overwhelmed
and recovered over a coffee and cake in the museum café.
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| 1000 year old Textile used for burial by the Wari people of Peru |
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| More Amazing Items at the Museum |
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Inca Quipu used for Keeping Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu tells you how to read it! |
From there I made
my way to Barrio Lastarrio at the side of Santa Lucia hill, a charming enclave
of traditional buildings now occupied by trendy shops, boutique hotels and, of
course, lots of bars and restaurants.
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| Boutique Hotel in Barrio Lastarrio |
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| All the Cafes are Busy |
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| Barrio Lastarrio |
In the evening
had dinner at Le Fournil near the hotel. The duck confit was very greasy but
the wine was OK.
Have you purchased a Quipu kit so that you can keep your own records as you go along?
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