Santiago: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
This is the short walk that holds the two dates every Chilean knows. Pedro de Valdivia laid out the square in 1541 and measured the city from it; six months later the Picunche burned the whole settlement down and the Spanish started again. And four centuries later, on the eleventh of September 1973, the air force bombed the palace at the other end of this walk and the president died inside it. Two hours on flat ground, all of it within six blocks.
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A short history of Santiago
On 12 February 1541 the conquistador Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago in the valley between the Andes and the coastal range, and by September of the same year local warriors led by Michimalonco had burnt it down. It was rebuilt and remained a modest colonial city, damaged again and again by earthquakes. After the battles of Chacabuco in 1817 and Maipú in 1818 it became the capital of independent Chile. On 11 September 1973 La Moneda Palace was bombed in Pinochet's military coup, and President Salvador Allende died inside. Today about seven million people live in the metropolitan area, almost forty per cent of the country's population.
The ten best sights in Santiago
1Plaza de ArmasPedro de Valdivia laid this square out in 1541 and measured the whole city from it. The street chess players by the cathedral have been there for decades.
2Catedral MetropolitanaThe fifth building on the same spot; the four before it were brought down by earthquakes. That sentence is the short history of architecture in this country.
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3Palacio de La Moneda
Built between 1784 and 1805 as the colonial mint, which is what the name means. The air force bombed it on 11 September 1973 and Salvador Allende died inside.
4Plaza de la ConstitucionThe square in front of La Moneda, with the changing of the guard every other day at ten. The statue of Allende was put up in 2000, twenty-seven years after the coup.
5Museo Historico NacionalOn the square, in the old royal courthouse. It holds the glasses Allende was wearing when he died, which are displayed without comment.
6Correo CentralThe post office stands where Valdivia's own house stood, and later the colonial governors'. It is still a working post office.
7Museo PrecolombinoThe best museum in Chile, in the old customs house. The Chinchorro mummies on the lower floor are over seven thousand years old — older than any in Egypt.
8Iglesia San FranciscoThe oldest building in the city, from the 1580s, and it has survived every earthquake since. The small wooden Virgin inside came with Valdivia in 1540.
9Cerro Santa LuciaThe rock Valdivia founded the city on, called Huelen before that. It was a bare outcrop until 1872, when the mayor turned it into a garden using prison labour.
10Biblioteca NacionalFounded in 1813, three years after independence was declared, on the argument that a country needs a memory. The reading rooms are open and free.
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What is an audio walk?
Tours in Santiago →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Santiago:
Free walking tours in Santiago
The Square and the Palace
This is the short walk that holds the two dates every Chilean knows. Pedro de Valdivia laid out the square in 1541 and measured the city from it; six months later the Picunche burned the whole settlement down and the Spanish started again. And four centuries later, on the eleventh of September 1973, the air force bombed the palace at the other end of this walk and the president died inside it. Two hours on flat ground, all of it within six blocks.
- Plaza de Armas · Valdivia founded the city here on the twelfth of February 1541 with about a hundred and fifty men. On the eleventh of September that year, while he was away in the south, the Picunche attacked and burned it; Ines de Suarez, the only Spanish woman present, is recorded as holding the line and beheading seven captive chiefs. The city was rebuilt on the same grid.
- The cathedral · The fifth cathedral on this spot. Four earlier ones were brought down by earthquakes, which is the plainest possible statement of what living here means: Chile sits on the boundary where the Nazca plate dives under South America, and the 1960 Valdivia earthquake remains the strongest ever recorded anywhere, at magnitude nine point five.
- Museo Precolombino · In the old customs house, and the best museum in the country. Downstairs are Chinchorro mummies from the northern desert, prepared more than seven thousand years ago — two thousand years before anything in Egypt, by a fishing people who dismantled and rebuilt their dead.
- Iglesia San Francisco · The oldest building standing in Santiago, from the 1580s, and it has outlived every earthquake since. Inside is a small wooden Virgin that Valdivia is said to have carried on his saddle from Peru in 1540; the church was built because he vowed to build one if he survived.
- Cerro Santa Lucia · This outcrop was called Huelen before the Spanish came and it is the rock Valdivia chose. It stayed a bare quarry until 1872, when the mayor Benjamin Vicuna Mackenna turned it into a terraced garden using prisoners as labour, and left a plaque saying so.
- Palacio de La Moneda · Built as the colonial mint between 1784 and 1805 by an Italian architect, and the name means exactly the coin. On the eleventh of September 1973 the air force put rockets through the roof; Salvador Allende died inside, and the building was restored and reopened in 1981 by the government that bombed it.
The River, the Hill and the Poet
North of the centre the city changes: the Mapocho cuts across it, the markets are on the far bank, and behind them a hill eight hundred and eighty metres high with a funicular from 1925. This is the half of Santiago that eats and drinks, and it ends on top of the hill looking at a wall of mountains that is six thousand metres high and twenty kilometres away. Two and a half hours with one funicular ride.
- Mercado Central · The iron frame was cast in Glasgow, shipped across the Atlantic in pieces and raised here in 1872 — the same decade and the same idea as the market halls of Europe. It is a fish hall, and the Humboldt current that runs up this coast is why the fish here is cold-water and excellent.
- La Vega Central · Across the river, and this is where the city actually buys food — about a thousand stalls and most of the produce in Santiago passing through. Chile grows everything because it runs four thousand three hundred kilometres north to south through almost every climate there is.
- Tirso de Molina · The market next door, and upstairs are the Peruvian counters. Peruvian migration to Santiago rose sharply from the 1990s and this floor is where that community eats and where the rest of the city learned to.
- Barrio Bellavista · The quarter at the foot of the hill, between the river and the slope, and the one Pablo Neruda chose for the house he built for Matilde Urrutia. He died twelve days after the coup; the house was ransacked and flooded, and his funeral became the first public demonstration against the new government.
- The funicular · Running since 1925 and a national monument. It climbs at a gradient of about forty-five degrees in places, and the carriages are the originals rebuilt.
- Cerro San Cristobal · Eight hundred and eighty metres, with a twenty-two metre Virgin placed on top in 1908. The view explains the city's worst problem: Santiago sits in a closed basin between the Andes and the coastal range, and in winter a thermal inversion traps the air and the smog with it.
What Happened Here
This route is the hard one, and it is the reason to come to Santiago rather than only pass through it. It goes to the museum that documents the dictatorship, to the stadium that was a detention camp, and to the cemetery where the names of the disappeared are cut into a wall. The official commissions counted more than three thousand killed or disappeared and around forty thousand victims of political imprisonment and torture between 1973 and 1990. Allow four hours and do not do it on your last day.
- Museo de la Memoria · Opened in 2010, thirty-seven years after the coup, and the state built it. It begins with the radio recording of Allende's last broadcast from inside La Moneda and ends with the 1988 referendum that removed Pinochet by a vote he himself called.
- Quinta Normal · The park beside the museum, laid out in 1842 as a station for acclimatising foreign plants and trees. It is a deliberate place to sit for twenty minutes afterwards, and that is what it is used for.
- Barrio Yungay · The oldest surviving residential quarter, laid out in 1839 and named after a battle. Its own residents organised from 2005 to get it protected as a heritage zone, and succeeded in 2009 — a neighbourhood defending itself from demolition rather than a council doing it.
- Cementerio General · Two million burials since 1821, arranged as streets with names. Allende was buried here properly only in 1990, seventeen years after his death, and the memorial wall to the executed and the disappeared carries the names cut into stone.
- Estadio Nacional · In the weeks after the coup the stadium held thousands of prisoners. The Soviet Union refused to play a World Cup qualifier here in November 1973; Chile took the field alone and scored into an empty net to claim the tie.
- Plaza Baquedano · Where the city gathers when it has something to say. From October 2019 more than a million people stood here in a single day, and the protests that began over a thirty-peso metro fare ended with a vote to rewrite the constitution.
Getting to Santiago and getting around
- Arturo Merino Benitez Airport · Eighteen kilometres west, and the only international airport most of Chile uses. The official airport bus runs to Pajaritos metro station and is a fraction of a taxi.
- Terminal Sur · Everything going south leaves from here — the lake district, Chiloe, Patagonia. Chilean long-distance buses have fully reclining seats and they are worth the extra.
- Estacion Central · The last working railway station in the capital, with an iron hall raised in 1897. Trains still run south from here, which in Chile is no longer obvious.
- Estacion Mapocho · Built as the northern railway terminus in 1912 and closed in 1987. The metal hall survived and is now the city's main exhibition space.
- Plaza Baquedano · The hinge of the city, where four metro lines and the main avenue meet. From October 2019 it was the centre of the protests and the city still argues about its name.
Cheap eats in Santiago
Eight counters where Santiago eats standing. The national lunch is the completo — a hot dog buried under mashed avocado, chopped tomato and a great deal of mayonnaise — and it costs about three thousand pesos. The other thing to know is the terremoto, the earthquake: cheap young white wine with pineapple ice cream in it, invented in a bar in this city, and the second glass is called an aftershock.
- Mercado Central · Open 7 to 5 · a bowl eight to twelve thousand pesos
- La Vega Central · Open 6 to 4 · a plate four to six thousand pesos
- Tirso de Molina · Open 9 to 6 · a plate six to nine thousand pesos
- Barrio Franklin · Saturday is the day · a plate five thousand pesos
- Persa Bio Bio · Weekends · about four thousand pesos
- Pueblito Los Dominicos · Open 10:30 to 7 · about two thousand pesos
- Barrio Lastarria · All day · two to four thousand pesos
- Mercado Franklin · Open 9 to 5 · a sandwich five thousand pesos
Museums in Santiago
- Museo Precolombino · Closed Monday
- Museo de la Memoria · Free · closed Monday
- Museo Historico Nacional · Free · closed Monday
- Museo de Bellas Artes · Free · closed Monday
- Museo Ralli · Free · closed Monday and February
- Museo de la Moda · Check the season · it closes between shows
- Estacion Mapocho · Open when there is a show
Parks and gardens in Santiago
- Cerro San Cristobal · Funicular from Bellavista · cable car from the east
- Cerro Santa Lucia · Free · open 9 to 7
- Parque Forestal · Free · busiest Sunday
- Parque Bicentenario · Free · the best flat run in the city
- Parque Quinta Normal · Free · closed Monday for the museums
- Parque O'Higgins · Free · September is the month
- Aguas de Ramon · Closed Monday · register before ten
Things to do in Santiago with kids
- Natural History Museum · Free · closed Monday
- Museo Artequin · Closed Monday
- Planetario · Shows at the weekend
- Fantasilandia · Check the season · closed some weekdays
- The funicular · Runs from 10 · queues at the weekend
- Parque Araucano · Free · open all day
- Pueblito Los Dominicos · Open 10:30 to 7
Nature and day trips near Santiago
- Cajon del Maipo · A full day · hire a car or a driver
- Embalse El Yeso · Summer only · the road closes in snow
- Banos Morales · Open October to April
- Valle Nevado · Winter · chains may be required
- Valparaiso · A full day · trains and buses both go
- Isla Negra · Closed Monday · book ahead
- Pomaire · Weekends are busy · go on a weekday
Live music in Santiago
- Teatro Municipal · Season March to December
- GAM · Much of the programme is free
- Barrio Bellavista · Late · take a taxi back
- Barrio Brasil · Weeknights are the good ones
- Barrio Lastarria · From seven · fills by nine
- Estacion Mapocho · Check what is on this week
- Club Hipico · Racing on Sunday
Frequently asked questions about Santiago
What is there to see in Santiago?
The top sights in Santiago are Plaza de Armas, Catedral Metropolitana and Palacio de La Moneda. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Santiago?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Santiago without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Santiago?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Santiago, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The Square and the Palace.
How do you get to Santiago and get around?
The main ways are Arturo Merino Benitez Airport, Terminal Sur and Estacion Central. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Santiago, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Santiago that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Santiago for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.