Punta Arenas, the most southern city in Chile is located on the Magellan Strait, really a short cut between the Atlanta and Pacific Ocean. This strait takes its name from the Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, who discovered it in 1520 on his discovery of sailing around the world. Punta Arenas, was founded in 1848 and prospered as a busy coaling station and provisioner of ships before the building of the Panama Canal in 1914. Fun fact, approximately one-quarter of the population are descendants of Croatian immigrants. Today, there is a population of approximately 110,000 inhabitants. Punta Arenas attracts fishing vessels from the South Atlantic as well as Antartica research and cruise ships and a recently added duty free zone has promoted commerce and immigration. It is also the bustling centre of one of the world’s largest sheep farming areas, with the major exports of wool and mutton. Another fun fact, Punta Arenas is home to the most southern Ski resort in the world.
Most of the major attractions are concentrated around the central square or Plaza Munoz Gamero (Plaza de Armas) and this is where we started our day as it is central and and easy few block walk from the ship. Cathedral, check, main square, check - great statue of Ferdinand Magellan, some retail therapy, check. After hitting all the main sites we headed the six blocks to the cemetery. Why, well, this cemetery was designated a National Monument of Chile in 2012 and in 2013 it was ranked as one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world by CNN. Several of Chile’s wealthiest have their final resting place here including Sara Braun and Jose Menendez. So it was definitely worth a half hour visit. From here we decided to head to Nao Victoria Museum, some 5 or so kilometres away. We walked most of the way until the rain came in and then took a Taxi the rest of the way. This would have worked out fine as this museum contains life size replicas of many ships, including the Magellan’s first ship to circumnavigate the world, but we also found that this was only a open air Museum - the rain coming down was too much for us to really enjoy the museum at $6 USD pp. We headed back to town and the main craft market. The hunger pang set is at this point and with just visiting the cemetery and learning about Sara Braun, we decided to head over to Casa de Sara Braun - this mansion was built by french architect, Numa Mayer, for Sara Braun, the wife of a Portuguese sailor turned millionaire businessman. Note, all the materials, pieces of furniture and art were shipped from Europe and the mansion was declared a national monument in 1974. I digress, this mansion and now connecting hotel have a most beautiful atrium restaurant and bar, Shackleton Bar, just beautiful. We had to have lunch here amongst all the artwork displaying Shackleton’s Endurance Voyage to Antartica - Ernest Shackleton visited and stayed here where he had asked for Sara Braun’s help in saving his men. So being a Shackleton fan we had lunch here and then came back for the Mansion tour later in the day.
A little more walk about and retail therapy before heading back to the ship at about 6 pm. Nice dinner tonight and an early night as we head into Glacier Alley tomorrow morning at 7 am. Hope you enjoy our few pics of the day… we clocked over 18,000 steps today or almost 15 klms, so we earned a good rest.
Quote of the day: “ Wanderlust (n): A strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world” - Anonymous
No comments:
Post a Comment