Being a tourist in Valparaiso

I love Valparaiso, which figures as I live here. I had spent my first few days when I came here in January visiting some tourist places, but being sick of travelling on my own, becoming obsessed with coding and having to find a job and a place to live soon got in the way.
Last month Erin came to visit me and go to Spanish classes during her summer holiday and we spent our weekends discovering the tourist side of Valparaiso.
Here are the places we visited:

Cemeterio de Dididentes on Cerro Carcel
One whole hill here is dedicated to cemeteries. This one is by far the prettiest. I really like visiting cemeteries and additionally to statues in different phases of decay and big shady trees this one also has a view.

Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepcion
these are the two hills of Valpo which the Unesco declared World Hertiage. It is also right where I live. It has colorful houses, beautiful views over the harbour, lots of stairs to get lost on and small cafés to treat yourself after walking. I especially love the promenade at the modern art museum, such a great view. To get there follow the ants painted on the sidewalks.

The harbour
What can I say, it is a harbour.

You can take a boat there to Muelle Barón where the sea lions are, but by the time we got there it was dark and we went to eat instead. Valpo has really good sea-food, we want into a s restaurant / bar by the harbour and had fishy things and beer. Chile has quite a lot of good beer, too...

Cerro Artilleria
This ascensor was scary. It was really shaky and is quite high as well. But from the top one has a good view over the harbour, we were there in the evenings and saw the lights go on in the city:



La Sebastiana
Pablo Nerudas house. It is on Cerro Bellavista and we walked there on Via Alemania, (Germaness can be seen in a lot of places around Chile, there is even a Plaza Bismark on Via Alemania), which has amazing views. The house itself is interesting, I had walked through it to the third floor when I entered the bathroom and remembered I had been there before. The bathroom has white and green and blue tiles and looks really cool. Neruda seemed to have been a difficult customer, regarding real estate, here was is his wishlist when looking for a house:

“I feel the tiredness of Santiago, 

I want to find a house to live and write in

peace at Valparaíso. Certain conditions must be

given. 

It may not be too high or too low. It must be 

solitary, but not in excess. I wish neighbors

were invisible. I wish I did not see or hear 

them. Original but not uncomfortable. Very 

light, but firm. Neither too big nor too small,

far from everything. But close to the stores. 

As well, it has to be very inexpensive. Do you 

think I can find a house like that in 

Valparaíso?” 

On a site note, Erin and me had been watching "Househunters International" during dinner, now I feel I should write a "Househunters International" fanfic with Pablo Neruda in it.

Muelle Barón
Sea Lions! Man, these things are agile. They were lying on top of a pylon, which rose the length of a full grown sea lion out of the water. And these fat things can jump that high, you really don't want to stand were they land.