Valparaíso Chile - City of Hills
Valparaíso houses climbing the hills Having spent three days Santiago Chile, we moved on to city of Valparaíso. Valparaíso is a beautiful city built along the hills that come down from the Andean plane to Pacific Ocean. The most striking thing about this city is the wide variety of colorful little houses built on the sides of the hills. They make Valparaíso an extremely beautiful and unique city. Valparaíso was settled by Spanish explorers in 1536 and remained a small town until 1810 when the first pier in South America was built there. Its importance grew during the mid-1800’s when it became a major port for those heading to California during the Gold Rush. The city also became home to significant populations of immigrants from England and Germany. Isabel Allende’s novel A Daughter of Fortune delves into this period of history. Valparaíso continued to serve as a major port until the opening of the Panama Canal in 1918. Today it has again become a major port shipping ...