Chile, Day 3

We woke up early and had breakfast (more of that wonderful bread!) and set off to explore the city. Santa Lucia was our first stop. Cerro Santa Lucia is the hill that Chile was founded on, and it is named for the saint of the date that Valdivia arrived there (Dec. 13). On the hill sits a yellow baroque castle with a fountain and statue of King Neptune. From the top of the hill, you can see the entire city and the Andes mountains that surround Santiago. Our next stop was the Museum of Bellas Artes. There were several interesting exhibits inside, and the museum was small enough to walk through and not have what I like to call “art overload.” We found a restaurant right behind the museum that we had been researching, called “Atelier del Arte.” Their menu items are named after famous artists and the restaurant is in a bright orange house that is strikingly different than the rest of the décor on the street. The menus are artists’ palettes complete with paintbrushes.
After lunch, we headed to the central market, where they sell fresh seafood and fruit and vegetables. We were accosted by several different waiters from the market’s 2 main restaurants, which are in the middle of all the booths. We had a really hard time convincing them that we weren’t hungry and didn’t want to eat again. Walking across the river from the market took us to Rua Bellavista, where there are several tourist shops full of lapis lazuli, a deep blue stone that is only found in Chile and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, where we were, there were no tourist shops to be found, so we walked for quite a while in search of them. Upon not finding any, we turned up Pio Nono towards Cerro San Cristobal. Since we were there, we took the funicular (a cable-operated train) to the top of the mountain, where we were treated to the strange view of palm trees on a backdrop of snow-covered mountains. We finally found shops that were to our liking and got some souvenirs and headed back to the hotel.
For dinner, we went to Applebee’s (only open 2 weeks) with some missionaries that we know. It was a strange thing to be in Applebee’s in Chile, even though the food was the same (and very good!)