Valparaíso
A port on forty-two hills, with nineteenth-century lifts instead of stairs and a mural on every second wall
- When to go
- October 14° · 2 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€price 3 of 5
- How many days
- 1days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 88 km Santiago
- Right now
Valparaíso is visited on foot and by funicular, and that is the whole trick: the city climbs forty-two hills, and the nineteenth-century lifts are still public transport. A day from Santiago is enough if you take two hills and do not try all of them.
Until 1914 the port was the main stop on the route around Cape Horn, and the city was built quickly and richly because of it. The opening of the Panama Canal abolished that route, the ships stopped coming, and Valparaíso froze at the moment it stopped growing. That is why it looks as it does: corrugated iron houses in strong colours, on slopes nobody ever levelled.
The ascensores are funiculars linking the lower town to the hills; more than thirty once ran, fewer than half do now. A ride takes a minute and costs less than a coffee. Concepción and El Peral run and lead to Cerro Concepción and Cerro Alegre; the Artillería, the one in the guidebooks, stands unrepaired. The rest is climbed on staircases, of which there are thousands, themselves covered in murals.
Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción are the two hills you spend the day on: galleries, cafés, murals. Neruda's house La Sebastiana is on a third hill, Bellavista, visited separately. The other hills are not touristed and are not walked at night. The city has a reputation for pickpockets — do not hold your phone in your hand on the street, and that is genuinely the only advice needed here.
Guides for Valparaíso
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Valparaíso in 1 day
→Up by the Concepción, down by El Peral, onto Bellavista by the Espíritu Santo — because the Artillería, the one in the…
What to see in Valparaíso
Cerro Alegre and Concepción
Two neighbouring hills with the most murals, galleries and cafés in the city. You spend the whole day here and do not come down before sunset. The Beethoven staircase and the Paseo Gervasoni are the two points to look for.
The Concepción funicular
From 1883, it runs from Prat street up to Cerro Concepción. A minute's ride; foreign visitors pay €0.90 a ride.
La Sebastiana
Neruda's third house, on Cerro Bellavista, above the bay, fitted out like a ship and full of things he collected all his life. The audio guide runs an hour and is the best of his three houses.
The murals
The city has been covered in murals since the nineties, and it is a permanent condition rather than a festival — work is painted over and replaced. The densest stretch is around Templeman and Almirante Montt.
The port and the fish market
The lower town, with ships, pelicans and sea lions waiting for scraps. A seafood lunch here costs a third of what it does on the hill.
Viña del Mar
Twenty minutes by metro, the neighbouring city with beaches, a casino and a flower clock. A completely different place — tidy, new and without a single hill; good as a contrast rather than a destination.
Two things you probably did not know
Valparaiso was the most important port on the Pacific until the Panama Canal opened in 1914. It lost its reason to exist overnight, which is why the centre stayed as it was.
The city climbs forty hills, so you move through it on funiculars from the nineteenth century. Fewer than half of the thirty or so that once ran are still working, and some have been declared monuments.
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