A gentle stroll amongst the cerros, and an antique ride...

Our hotel, amongst its many virtues, offered a walking tour of the city as part of our stay, and the next morning, we were greeted by Cynthia, who has been leading walking tours in Valparaíso for seven years or so.

We started with a gentle stroll around Cerro Alegre, our own area of the city, before taking the ascensor down to Plaza Sotomayor. The highlights of the square were duly noted, but we were then led to the side of a building to take a ride on the city’s trolleybus route.

Alright, I can sense your thought - why a trolleybus, and why is it interesting? Well, Valparaíso has the oldest trolleybuses still in service anywhere in the world, some of which date back to 1947, and they are American in construction. The newer ones, a mere fifty years old, were imported secondhand from Switzerland, but all of them still serve the locals admirably, and the fare is very reasonable.

Now, I admit to being a bit of a bus enthusiast, indeed, a public transport enthusiast, so a ride on an obscure and unusual form of transport suited me just fine. It was a short ride though, as Cynthia needed to make a stop at her preferred butcher, which gave us an interesting glance at Chilean life, plus lots of free samples of cured pork and salami.

Back on the trolleybus, our next stop was the Queen Victoria ascensor (see, I told you that the British influence is strong here!), which was our link to Cerro Concepción, the other prime hill of the city. The architecture is... unexpected, with a lot of buildings clad with corrugated iron sheets, including the various churches.

For Valparaíso was indeed an international city, and permission was given to the Anglicans and the Lutherans to build their churches, so long as they weren’t too obvious. Apparently, they have the best pipe organ in South America, but I’m unable to personally vouch for that.

All that was left to do was to get back to the hotel, made slightly more complicated by the need to get from one hill to another. It meant climbing up the hillside, cutting across and then making our way back down again.

Luckily, we’re both a lot fitter these days...