It was always on our list to go hiking in the Patagonia Mountains. We decided to spend some time in Chile as well as Argentina. We flew to Santiago in a direct flight from New York with only one day to sight see there. It is not a large city and we covered it in a few hours. There is a nice main square with a beautiful Cathedral and then we walked through the local market and after that saw some to historic buildings. We had heard that there is a huge Peruvian population and there are some good restaurants – so for lunch we had Peruvian food – it was quite delicious and very light on our wallet, lunch for 4 cost us around $70 dollars with beers.

Then we headed over to the museum “Bella Artes” – it’s a good mix of old and new modern exhibits. The building is beautiful and the architecture itself is worth seeing. There is no entrance fee but, a suggested donation. After that we walked the historic barrio, Lastarria with quaint cafes and vendors selling local artisanal goods. It is very pretty and since it was sunny afternoon, it was the perfect place to walk around.

We were staying at the Singular Santiago which has a very nice rooftop bar – so we had a good break over drinks and just watching the skyline. Thorn we headed over to San Cristobal up the hill, the Funicular was not working so we hopped on a bus purchasing round trip for $5 each. There was an option to take a taxi but the bus was very good. At the top as we head up the stairs to the statue we saw there was wedding about to start in the church – what a treat to see the bride walking in!!

The views are amazing from up there – we had a good time strolling around. Dinner was in the Bella vista district which had lots of restaurants and many with tables outside. We already had a reservation at Bocaraniz which has a great wine selection. The food was delicious and paired well with the wines. We tried several dishes and all were excellent. For dessert we ordered the Dulce de Leche which was a little disappointing it came with what looked like gelato and a small piece of flan with some chocolate cake on the side – too many things going in one plate.

Overall, we had great time in Santiago with one day being enough – next stop is Patagonia!!!!