Post by emilyinchile on Dec 25, 2013 18:23:01 GMT -5
More info, please. I live in Chile and am happy to help, but I don't know what you like, what your budget is, exactly when you're coming, what your goals are for the trip, etc.
I am in Santiago and haven't yet been to Easter Island because flights are quite expensive. Have you priced them out? You can definitely do 3ish days in Santiago and 4 in Easter Island, but to give you a better idea of what to do we need to know what you're looking for.
Emilyinchile is the best to give advice but I have done chile and Easter island in july and it was fine, not too cold, we did Santiago and Atacama. We loved Easter island.
thanks! I have not looked at flights yet but I was thinking of splitting it up 3 days in Santiago area and 4 on Easter Island (because I read logistically it's hard to do in less because there aren't a ton of flights, etc). We will be visiting in July most likely.
I guess I'm mostly looking for ideas to do in/around Santiago. We are in the very initial planning stage.
For our travel style, we like to get an overall idea of the city, explore touristy places (quickly) and I was also reading about the day trips outside the city but I wasn't sure what would be fun. We like wine tasting, mountains, beaches, scenery in general. My husband likes history and museums but I'm not as into it as he is (but I will go along for a little while)
thanks in advance! Sorry I don't have more info right now. hopefully in the next few months I should have more of an idea!
Post by alleinesein on Dec 26, 2013 1:44:29 GMT -5
I've done Santiago and it was a nice relaxing trip. We skipped Rapa Nui because its about a 5 hour flight from Santiago and it would suck up 2 days for travel.
We also did a day trip to Valparaiso/Vina del Mar/Wineries and it cost about USD $200 for the day plus food.
We were there in June and the climate/temps were similar to San Diego in the winter. It can get cold at night (it was dropping into the 30's while we were there) but during the day was 60s-70s.
We went to the Mercado Central and wandered around the city a few times. Spent most of our time in Barrio Bellavista; one of Pablo Nerudas homes is there as well as some jewelry stores for silver and lapis lazuli.
Pueblito Los Dominicos is good for a few hours; its a bunch of little artisan shops and a few restaurants. The metro line runs out there now so its super easy to get to. paseolosdominicos.cl/
I've done Santiago and it was a nice relaxing trip. We skipped Rapa Nui because its about a 5 hour flight from Santiago and it would suck up 2 days for travel.
We also did a day trip to Valparaiso/Vina del Mar/Wineries and it cost about USD $200 for the day plus food.
We were there in June and the climate/temps were similar to San Diego in the winter. It can get cold at night (it was dropping into the 30's while we were there) but during the day was 60s-70s.
We went to the Mercado Central and wandered around the city a few times. Spent most of our time in Barrio Bellavista; one of Pablo Nerudas homes is there as well as some jewelry stores for silver and lapis lazuli.
Pueblito Los Dominicos is good for a few hours; its a bunch of little artisan shops and a few restaurants. The metro line runs out there now so its super easy to get to. paseolosdominicos.cl/
did you go to the wineries on your own or with a company? If a company, which one?
this is the kind of stuff I wanted to hear about! thanks!
Post by alleinesein on Dec 26, 2013 17:50:34 GMT -5
We hired Alan from Chilean Journeys for the day. We stopped at 2 wineries on the way back from Valparaiso. If you do not speak spanish one advantage to having a tour guide is that they can coordinate private winery tours in english.
You can also rent a car for the day and visit the wineries on your own. My only caution about driving in Santiago is that some of the main roads change direction during rush hour to help with traffic flow and if you arent familiar with the city it can be confusing. It might be better now so hopefully emilyinchile can provide a bit more info on that.
There are a lot of stray dogs in Santiago. Almost all of the ones we encountered were friendly and they mostly ignored us.
Post by emilyinchile on Dec 27, 2013 10:41:34 GMT -5
Ok, I'm back! Was on a trip of my own until this morning
As far as wineries go, this is something I would definitely spend time on since you guys like wine. There are several options of how to do things, and the best one will depend on what types of wine you like and how many wineries you want to see. If you're more into whites, you will want to go to the Casablanca valley which is between Santiago and Valparaíso. Casas del Bosque is one of my favorites, but there are a ton of options. For this I would probably look for a tour or driver just because getting there on the bus is somewhat tricky, and Chile has a zero tolerance law on driving with any alcohol at all in your system, so renting a car isn't a good option. For reds, you will be looking more at the Maipo valley. A great spot is Santa Rita, where you can have a tour, tasting and a nice lunch, but again, for this I would look for a tour/driver for the same reasons listed above. If you want to do things independently, the following wineries are all accessible via metro and short taxi ride (like $10 max taxi) inside Santiago: Concha y Toro (biggest winery in Chile), Santa Carolina, Cousiño Macul, Aquitania. La Bicicleta Verde offers a bike and wine tour which is good, but personally I wouldn't want to commit to being on a bike in July in case the weather's bad. Last but not least, the Colchagua valley is generally regarded as the best wine valley in Chile and has some really stellar vineyards (http://www.emilyinchile.com/tag/colchagua - where I've been there), but it's about 2.5 hours from Santiago and so may be farther than you want to go in a day.
I think alleinesein gave a great run-down of what to do in the city itself. My only disagreement would be to say that it sounds like she got particularly good weather as in July it can often be in the 40s-50s during the day. Your hotel will have heat, but many places don't, so bring layers so that you can stay warm if you're out walking around all day.
A lot of the dedicated historical museums here are kind of pathetic, but the Museo de la Memoria is new and very good if you're interested in the history of the dictatorship. I was there about a year ago with friends, and we all agreed the information in English wasn't as good as it should have been, but they may have improved this (or you may speak Spanish!).
Personally if you're looking at 3 days in Santiago, I would spend 2 in the city and only 1 on a day trip like wine tasting. I do think that spending a day in Valparaiso can be fun, and skiing is an option just 2 hours from Santiago, but I wouldn't suggest only having 1 day in Santiago itself, and I prefer wine over those other activities
Let us know as you have more questions - as you can see, there are several people on the board with great tips!