Cile, deserti e ghiacciai

Santiago de Chile spreads across an elevation of over 500 metres at the foot of the Andes, with the snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera rising on the horizon like a permanent, almost surreal backdrop. Founded in 1541 by Pedro de Valdivia, the Chilean capital is today a modern, cosmopolitan metropolis of over seven million inhabitants, capable of surprising visitors with the variety of its neighbourhoods, its cultural vitality and quality of life. The historic centre revolves around the Plaza de Armas, flanked by the Catedral Metropolitana, the Palacio de la Real Audiencia and the Museo Histórico Nacional — a few blocks are enough to retrace five centuries of colonial and republican history. Nearby, the Barrio Lastarria is a bohemian hub of art galleries, antiquarian bookshops and cafés open late into the night; the Barrio Italia enchants with its vintage design shops, fusion restaurants and murals that turn walls into open-air canvases. The Cerro Santa Lucía, a small hill in the heart of the city, offers a stroll through romantic gardens and panoramic viewpoints, while the Cerro San Cristóbal — reachable by funicular or on foot — rewards climbers with a 360-degree view of the entire metropolitan area. The lively, colourful Bellavista neighbourhood is home to the house-museum of Pablo Neruda, La Chascona, where the Chilean poet lived among storytelling objects, coloured bottles and a garden of curiosities. Upscale shopping concentrates in the modern Barrio Providencia and leafy Vitacura, where international boutiques share space with craft markets and tree-lined parks. The gastronomic scene is among the most dynamic in South America: from corvina ceviche to pasteles de choclo, from empanada de pino to lomo a lo pobre, Chilean flavours find accomplished interpreters in Santiago's restaurants, blending tradition and creativity. The markets of La Vega Central and Mercado Central offer an immersion in authentic Chile, amid aromatic herbs, exotic fruits and the freshest fish from both oceans. Santiago is also an ideal base for day trips: the wineries of the Maipo Valley to the south, the Valparaíso and Viña del Mar riviera to the west, and the ski slopes of Valle Nevado and Portillo to the east. An efficient metro network makes it easy to move between neighbourhoods, and the city boasts a first-rate museum offering, from the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos. Santiago de Chile is a capital that never ceases to astonish, weaving Andean grandeur with the irrepressible energy of a young city in perpetual transformation.

Viña del Mar stretches along the Pacific coast a few kilometres from Valparaíso, establishing itself as Chile's foremost beach resort and one of the most visited in South America. Its fine sandy beaches — Playa de Viña, Playa Acapulco, Playa Reñaca — come alive during the summer months with Chilean and foreign tourists, while the plane-tree-lined avenues, neo-Tudor villas and flowering gardens of the Quinta Vergara earn it the nickname «Ciudad Jardín» (Garden City). The Quinta Vergara amphitheatre hosts the Festival Internacional de la Canción de Viña del Mar each February, one of Latin America's most celebrated musical events. Castillo Wulff, a neo-Gothic villa on the waterfront, and the Reloj de Flores — a floral clock on the seafront — are the most photographed symbols. The Casino Municipal, open since the early twentieth century, adds a touch of Belle Époque glamour. Viña del Mar can be reached from Santiago in under an hour and a half by car and is often combined with a visit to Valparaíso. Valparaíso embraces a Pacific bay, spreading across forty-two cerros — the hills that climb above the port plain — in a labyrinth of painted alleyways, wooden staircases and vintage funicular lifts connecting the upper neighbourhoods with the commercial centre below. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city is famous for its murals that transform every wall into a work of art, and for an atmosphere unique in the world, combining the vitality of a working port with the creativity of a university city. Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción are the most photogenic neighbourhoods: colourful houses, cafés with panoramic ocean views, bed and breakfasts in tastefully restored late-nineteenth-century mansions. The waterfront of the Plan — the lower city level — teems with markets, offices and seafood restaurants; the Mercado Puerto offers fresh fish and shellfish at honest prices. In the evenings, the cerros come alive with bars and small live-music venues where students, artists and travellers mingle. Valparaíso is also where Pablo Neruda loved to spend his days: his house, La Sebastiana, is now a public museum with an eccentric collection that tells the story of the poet's life and imagination. Less than ten kilometres away lies Viña del Mar, reachable in just a few minutes by train. Valparaíso is a city that reveals itself slowly, on foot, curve by curve, colour by colour.

Calama is a mining city in the Antofagasta region, the northern gateway to the Atacama desert and the main service centre for the area's copper mines, including the celebrated Chuquicamata, one of the largest open-pit mines in the world. The city is a mandatory transit hub for travellers heading to San Pedro de Atacama overland; nearby Ojos del Salado is the world's highest active volcano. Calama offers modern amenities and good air connections to Santiago. San Pedro de Atacama is the exploratory heart of the driest desert in the world: an ochre adobe village at 2,400 metres in the Antofagasta region, surrounded by volcanoes, salt flats and lagoons of unreal chromatic beauty. The Plaza de Armas with its colonial church in volcanic stone is the centre of a community that coexists with dozens of adventure operators, establishing itself as one of the most vibrant exploration tourism hubs in South America. Dawn at the Valle de la Luna — a lunar landscape of dunes and salt formations bathed in pink light — is one of the continent's most extraordinary visual experiences; at sunset the sky turns orange and violet, and the silence of the desert becomes absolute. The Salar de Atacama, a few kilometres away, hosts colonies of pink flamingos reflected in the still saline waters like a mirror. Nearby, the El Tatio geysers are active at dawn at over 4,300 metres, where steam rises into the freezing Puna air in a breathtaking spectacle. The altiplano lagoons of Miscanti and Miñiques, at around 4,100 metres, display colours ranging from pale blue to deep turquoise, framed by volcanic cones. The Museo Arqueológico R. P. Gustavo Le Paige holds an extraordinary collection of Atacameño cultural artefacts, including mummies perfectly preserved by the extreme dryness. San Pedro is also a privileged haven for stargazers: the Atacama's night sky, with its exceptional transparency and absence of light pollution, is among the most star-filled on Earth, and several facilities offer guided observations of the southern constellations. After excursions, the dusty village streets come alive with travellers seeking local crafts, Andean cuisine and a good pisco sour.

Along the way, you can admire vast stretches of desert, rocky mountains, and unique geological formations.

Punta Arenas commands the Strait of Magellan at over 53 degrees south latitude — fierce wind and changeable sky included — asserting itself as the southernmost city in the world with more than one hundred thousand inhabitants. Founded in 1848 as a penal colony and supply port for ships passing towards the Pacific, it transformed into a flourishing commercial centre thanks to sheep farming and the maritime trade of the belle époque. The Plaza Muñoz Gamero, with its statue of Magellan at the centre, is the town's gathering point: tradition has it that touching the navigator's foot brings good luck to travellers. The Cementerio Municipal, with its cypress and marble tombs surrounded by twisted cypress trees, is one of the most beautiful cemeteries in South America. Punta Arenas is the embarkation point for cruises to Tierra del Fuego, the Beagle Channel and the Antarctic Peninsula. A few kilometres away lies the Magallanes Peninsula Biosphere Reserve, home to colonies of Magellanic penguins; the Reserva Nacional Magallanes hosts lenga and nothofagus forests with breathtaking views over the strait. The cuisine is robust and flavourful: cordero al asador, king crab and dishes from the Croatian tradition brought by the many Dalmatian immigrants. Punta Arenas welcomes visitors with the austere pride of those who inhabit the end of the world. The route follows a road that crosses vast open landscapes of Patagonia, with spectacular views of mountains, steppes, and the region’s fjords. Along the way, you can admire the untouched beauty of nature and the grandeur of the landscapes stretching out to the horizon. Puerto Natales stands on the shores of the Seno Última Esperanza, one of the most evocative fjords in Chilean Patagonia, with snow-capped mountains and glaciers reflected in steel-coloured waters. A small town of around twenty thousand inhabitants in the Magallanes region, it is universally known as the gateway for exploring Torres del Paine National Park, the jewel of southern Patagonia. Its streets of colourful wood and corrugated iron conceal an authentic frontier atmosphere, where hikers from around the world prepare for some of the planet's most famous treks, including the W Circuit and the Full Circuit. The waterfront along the Seno Última Esperanza offers memorable sunsets, with the colours of the sky reflected in the silent waters of the fjord and the silhouettes of the Cuernos del Paine in the distance. In the town's restaurants and hosterías, visitors savour cordero patagónico — grilled Patagonian lamb — and centolla, the famous king crab of the southern channels, paired with characterful Chilean wines. Puerto Natales is also the departure point for cruises through the Patagonian fjords, an unforgettable experience among icebergs and cormorant colonies. The town is the beating heart of adventure tourism in Chilean Patagonia and, after every expedition, welcomes travellers back with a genuine warmth that speaks of the end of the world.

From Puerto Natales, you head west across the vast and remote region of Patagonia. Along the way, you can enjoy the untouched beauty of nature and the wide expanses of the Patagonian steppe. Upon arriving at Torres del Paine National Park, you are immersed in breathtaking landscapes of majestic mountains, glaciers, lakes, and valleys. Torres del Paine is Chile's most famous national park and one of the great natural landscapes on Earth: a territory of 181,000 hectares in southern Patagonia where pink granite towers, blue glaciers, lagoons of impossible colours and wind-swept grasslands compose landscapes of primordial beauty. The three towers that give the park its name — Paine Grande, Paine Chico and Paine Torre Sur — rise vertically for almost three thousand metres, and the view at dawn, when the rosy light tinges them gold, is considered one of the most moving in all of South America. The W Circuit trek is the classic five-day route that crosses the most scenic highlights: the Mirador Las Torres, the Valle del Francés with its avalanches of rock and ice, and Glaciar Grey, an immense field of blue ice flowing into the lake of the same name. The park is home to guanacos, condors, rheas, pumas and an extraordinary variety of wild birds. The waters of Lago Pehoé, an unreal shade of blue, reflect the Cuernos del Paine creating a natural tableau that appears in every photograph of Chile. For those who prefer not to hike the circuits, kayaking on glacial lakes, horse riding and cruises on Glaciar Grey offer equally memorable alternatives. Torres del Paine is a place to be experienced with respect and unhurried attention, allowing wild Patagonia to slowly get under the skin. The route follows the main road that crosses the park and extends eastward through the Patagonian steppe. Once leaving Torres del Paine National Park, the journey continues through the vast and remote region of Patagonia until reaching Puerto Natales.

The route follows a road that crosses vast open landscapes of Patagonia, with spectacular views of mountains, steppes, and the region’s fjords. Along the way, you can admire the unspoiled beauty of nature and the grandeur of the landscapes stretching out to the horizon.