Santiago

If you were dropped here without knowing, you would assume that you are in Spain. We have been around the city for a day, but I am already falling in love with this place. If I had three wishes for my perfect city, they would be:

1. Sunny for most of the year
2. Every third shop to be an ice cream place
3. Going from beach to snow-capped mountains, from swimming to snowboarding, in two hours

This is Santiago.

It’s strange, but when you first arrive in this country, you get the feeling that you are visiting a Western European city. It’s not just easy to find your way around, but you also get a sense of familiarity with the place. On the flip side, the native South Americans seem to have disappeared…

For what it offers, Santiago isn’t expensive. Everything costs about half of what you’d pay in London, and food is around a quarter of the price.

We had two days to explore the city. We stayed in the Che Lagarto hostel (hostelbooking.com rulez!!!). The first day, we walked through the city centre, shopping streets, and hiked up the park-hill (San Cristobal), which is very much like Likavitos in Athens.

A fantastic 100-picture photo exhibition in the park gave us a visual tour of Chile, both present and past.

The second day, we took the off-the-beaten-track walk to the backstreets of the city, looking for the cool graffiti and the cafes with fewer tourists. After a visit to a museum/art gallery, the day ended in a bar drinking beer where we planned the next day’s visit to a few vineyards to taste the local food and wine.

Not the cheapest city in South America but a candidate for one of my favourites…