Feeling small in the Harbour, Valparaiso

We wandered down to the tourist harbour and found many boatmen anxious to take us on a tour of the harbour. Jimmy one of only 2 English speaking guides was keen accompany us on our trip. He made sure that we saw everything including a pelican some cormorants and some male and female sea lions who have found that barrels attached to the floating dry dock are a great place to

come ashore and have a bit of a

rest! Valparaiso is the legislative capital of Chile so we saw their equivalent of our parliament building - there must be a continuing theme about parliament buildings as this one is not inspiring either. My favourite part of the tour was pulling alongside the

giant container ships to view them from sea level, very different from our views when looking down on the harbour from the hillside above. We arranged to go on a walking tour with Jimmy the following day. We pottered some more in this fascinating city

finding the market with beautiful, fruit, vegetables, fish and flowers before finding an assensor to take us back up the hill.

The next day was another glorious day and we started with a walk up the hill behind the hotel to visit Pablo Nedura's home in Valparaiso. He is a very important Chilean poet, who won the

Nobel Prize for Literatre. The house and the occupant are totally fascinating. All the rooms have

amazing views from large windows and Steve commented that this was a house that I would love as it was very light and airy. The collection of objects in his house are truly magnificent and range from a superb desk at which he worked at to a beautiful rocking horse which looks as if it is still

standing on a carousel because of the way he shaped the floor around it. You are not allowed to take photos inside which is understandable, but frustrating as there were too many

beautiful items to remember each one individually. There were also some of his poems helpfully translated into English scattered throughout the house. One was about the joy of his home which he read to people at his open house when the house was completed.

There was a great feeling of joy in this home. We were also lucky enough to hear part of a concert with some exceptionally talented musicians. We rushed down the hill caught the asscensor and then the metro train to the port. We met up with Jimmy who took us to view another part of town and we had a coffee stop at a lovely restaurant with views to the harbour. He knew all the best places to enjoy different views of the city and we enjoyed chatting to him and learning a little about life in Chile today. He also took us to visit a stunning church which is

still in use and is the 2nd oldest in Valparaiso. It had been a monastery, but there are no monks there anymore. It was closed to the public, but he chatted to the warden who agreed we could look around. For a Catholic church it was very simple and appealing. It seemed in its simplicity more like a presbyterian one. It was very sad to see that it was in a very poor state of repair with the clock tower needing urgent repair and cracks down the external walls. We walked back to a small public harbour and watched some young people catching crabs. They threw back all the small ones. We laughed a little as a notice close to them said – no fishing! Our final trip was on the metro to the end of the line. We were underground for a few stops

at Vina del Mar then the train headed out into the countryside which was very varied with lots of fruit and vegetables growing beside the line along with flowers and some barley.

We returned in the early evening to the City and took asscenser up the hill to discover that the restaurant we fancied for dinner did not open until 8 p.m. And it was only 7 p.m. We went back down on the asscenser – I really like travelling up and down on them and found a nice bar to have a drink until we could go for dinner. The restaurant had also stunning sea views and we sat there watching the sun set and yet another container ship arrive in port. It was a fantastic day of variety.