I heard many bad things about Santiago before I came. Things like ugly, boring, just another city, etc. So I was quite surprised to discover today that Santiago is actually a very nice city!
I hopped on to the open-top tourist bus you can find in a lot of cities nowadays. I think it's a pretty good way to get an introduction to a city: you get a glimpse of all the major sights and neighborhoods, along with some explanations, and even convenient transportation to the more remote places. Unfortunately, taking pictures out of a bus rarely works out, so I only have some from where I actually got off the bus.
My first stop was Parque Arauco, a huge mall.
There, I somehow felt the need to indulge in western fast food: Taco Bell, Starbucks, Krapfen, donuts. I stopped short of the pretzels because I was already too full ;-)
My next stop was Parque Metropolitano with its massive statue of the Immaculate Conception overlooking Santiago.
The views from up there are really amazing. The city just stretches on and on until the horizon.
About 6.5 million people live in Santiago - that's 40% of all Chilenos! Imagine Berlin having 32 million inhabitants, that would be the same ratio for Germany. No wonder that huge stretches of Chile are so empty ;-)
Here's another view of Santiago, with me in front of it:
I hopped on to the open-top tourist bus you can find in a lot of cities nowadays. I think it's a pretty good way to get an introduction to a city: you get a glimpse of all the major sights and neighborhoods, along with some explanations, and even convenient transportation to the more remote places. Unfortunately, taking pictures out of a bus rarely works out, so I only have some from where I actually got off the bus.
My first stop was Parque Arauco, a huge mall.
There, I somehow felt the need to indulge in western fast food: Taco Bell, Starbucks, Krapfen, donuts. I stopped short of the pretzels because I was already too full ;-)
My next stop was Parque Metropolitano with its massive statue of the Immaculate Conception overlooking Santiago.
The views from up there are really amazing. The city just stretches on and on until the horizon.
About 6.5 million people live in Santiago - that's 40% of all Chilenos! Imagine Berlin having 32 million inhabitants, that would be the same ratio for Germany. No wonder that huge stretches of Chile are so empty ;-)
Here's another view of Santiago, with me in front of it:
