Santiago & Central Chile

Santiago sits in a bowl of mountains with the Andes close enough to see from the street, a big, orderly city that works as the door to Chile the way Buenos Aires does to Argentina. Around it lies the central valley, Chile's vineyard country, and beyond the coastal hills the Pacific at Valparaíso, a port city of staircases and painted houses that is the opposite of the capital in every way.

For most travellers Santiago is a connection rather than a destination, and the region's job is to make those days count: a night or two in the city, a day on the coast at Valparaíso, a day among the vineyards of the Maipo or Casablanca valleys. It joins the Argentine side in two ways, by air to anywhere or by the mountain road over the Andes from Mendoza, which turns a connection into a journey. From here, itineraries continue north to Atacama or south to the Lakes District.

The city works all year. Spring and autumn are the best for walking it; summer is hot and dry, when santiaguinos leave for the coast, and the harvest in the valleys runs from March to April. Winter is cool, sometimes grey, and brings the ski season to the mountains above the city.