After resting most of the day after lunch, we went downstairs at the hotel searching for a light dinner. It was after 8, but the restaurants were still fairly quiet as people seem to eat as they do in Spain at about 10. We got side tracked looking at the menu at the fancy restaurant in the Sheraton called El Cid and decided if we could get in without a reservation, we would try it. OMG, the food was spectacular.

 

 

We slept until after nine this morning, and then went to the breakfast buffet at the Sheraton. We then decided to take the Hop On, Hop Off bus today and to include Teleférico and Funicular in the Parque Metropolitano de Santiago. The Teleférico is like a four person tram car and at the top gives access to the Statue of the Virgin and the Funicular down to the bottom of the park. We were picked up at the hotel and dropped at the Teleférico. What a view! Wow, just wow, is understating it.

At the top is the statue of the Virgin and it is quite lovely.

Coming down the funicular is much more crowded and at the bottom, the lines to get on it stretched out for blocks. We had forgotten it was Saturday and summertime, so a double reason for more people.

From the bottom, we walked a half block to the Hop On bus stop and took it to the Plaza de Armas stop. Just like most colonial Spanish settlements, a city block was left in the center of the town for parades.

We walked from there over to the Mercado Central which is a huge enclosed market, probably selling many things but we saw only fish stands. All the fresh fish looked great and interesting, but we were heading to lunch at Donde Augusto restaurant which is in the middle of the Mercado. A few months ago, I was flipping through channels on the TV and came across Andrew Zimmer’s show about destinations. He was doing Santiago. It had to be fate! We even knew what to order! I got Pastel de Jaiba which is a crab dish made with lots of crab, a cream sauce and loads of Parmesan cheese. Alan got a very local dish called congrio which is conger eel and local to Chile. It is served as steaks, fried, and topped with fried eggs and fried potatoes. Sorry, no pictures but the food lived up to Zimmer’s recommendations.

After walking back to the bus stop, we “hopped on” and toured the rest of the city. It took a couple of hours but gave us a good overview of the size and the parts of Santiago.

Tomorrow is Sunday and we will decide what we want to do then. This is a much less planned, much more leisurely 5 days in Santiago than we usually have on a trip, but I figured that the cruise is so planned, we would take the before and after trips as they come.