Parque Metropolitano

In this post from my Year Abroad blog, I posted some pictures from when I visited Cerro San Cristóbal with my boyfriend in June. On that occasion it was a wintry evening, and the city was very smoggy, as can be seen in my photos.

We went back to the same place again, six months and one day later! This time it was summer and during the day, so it was quite a different experience. Last time we hiked up to the Virgin Mary statue and got the funicular railway back down. However, this time we took the cable car up and part of the way down, and walked the rest.

The cable car was so fun! The views over the city were amazing, and much clearer this time thanks to the summer weather.

The views from the top of the hill were really nice as well.

It was good to see the usual statues again, as well as another giant nativity set like the ones I'd seen previously that week!

This time the chapel inside the Virgin Mary statue was open, so we could take a look inside.

Above all, what I loved was being there with my boyfriend again, 6 months on from our first visit.

A few days after that we went to Piscina Antilén, one of the two swimming pools in the park (the other one is Piscina Tupahue, which can be seen in my blog post I linked to at the start of this post). It was so big and such a beautiful place to swim, with views of the mountains. For some reason, my pictures came out terribly, but you get the idea!

Parque Metropolitano is a beautiful place with so much to see and do. And I still haven't seen and done it all yet! Next time I'm there (whenever that may be), I want to visit the Japanese garden and swim in Piscina Tupahue!

Cementerio General

On my first full day in Santiago, my boyfriend and I went to Cementerio General, one of the largest cemeteries in Latin America. It might seem like an odd place to want to visit, but it was actually fascinating. My boyfriend went there last month (his grandfather is buried there), and he showed me some pictures. It's really nothing like the graveyards you find in England; some of the tombs are like palaces.

The entrance to the cemetery

Some of the most impressive tombs:

These two tombs were both inspired by churches in Santiago (with pictures I took earlier in 2018 for comparison): Iglesia de San Francisco...

...and Basílica de los Sacramentinos. (This is my favourite church in Santiago.)

In the cemetery, you can see the grave of Salvador Allende, the former president of Chile, who died during the military coup of 1973.

There is also a large monument for the people who were murdered during the Pinochet dictatorship.

The cemetery is a huge place (it's estimated that two million people are buried there), and you can spend hours walking around it. There are tombs for people of many different origins, and those origins can be seen reflected in their design. It's a strangely beautiful place, that makes you reflect on the history of Chile. For this reason, parts of it have been designated as a national monument.

Back in Santiago Again!

I just got home yesterday after an amazing week and a half with my boyfriend in Chile. I'm a bit sad to be back (and doing essays 😢), but it was an adventure I'll never forget.

There will be several blog posts to cover all the different places we went to, but I'll start off with some of the sights we saw in Santiago in this first post. It was great to be back in the city where I lived for four and a half months. Not much has changed, except it's much hotter now than it was when I left in July! It was really nice to explore the city in the sunshine.

I stayed in a hostel in Providencia, an area that's popular with students. It was near a big park; Inés de Suárez.

There was also another scenic park by the metro station.

During my trip it seemed weird to me that it was summer, and Christmastime at the same time! But it was interesting to find out how Chileans celebrate Christmas and New Year. One thing I noticed was that they put up huge nativity sets outside, something I don't remember ever seeing in the UK.

This is Iglesia San Francisco de Borja, a church for members of los Carabineros, the police force 

in Chile.

Palacio Bruna

Plaza de la Aviación: a park with beautiful dancing fountains, designed as a monument to Chilean aviation. They are even better at night because they get lit up with bright colours!

After we got back from the Atacama Desert, I had one more day left in Santiago. On that day, we went to El Templo Votivo de Maipú, a huge temple near to where my boyfriend lives. It is really impressive!

To sum up, I was really glad to be back in Santiago. As I've said before in my Year Abroad blog, it's a very good city to live in, and there's plenty of touristic sights to see as well. 

There's a couple of other places we went to in Santiago that I will devote entire blog posts to. After that, I will be writing about Cajón del Maipo, Algarrobo (for the second time!) and of course, the Atacama desert!