Museum sights in Chile
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La Chascona
When poet Pablo Neruda needed a secret hideaway to spend time with his mistress Matilde Urrutia, he built La Chascona, which he named for her unruly hair. Neruda loved the sea (but disliked sailing) so the dining room is modeled on a ship’s cabin and the living room on a lighthouse. Guided tours walk you through the history of the building and the collection of colored glass, shells, furniture and artworks by famous friends that fills it – sadly much more was lost when the house was ransacked during the dictatorship. The Fundación Neruda, which maintains Neruda’s houses, has its headquarters here and runs a swank gift shop and lovely café.
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Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino
Exquisite pottery from most major pre-Colombian cultures is the backbone of Santiago’s best museum, the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. As well as dozens of intricately molded anthropomorphic vessels, star exhibits include hefty Mayan stone stele and a fascinating Andean textile display. More unusual are the wooden vomit spatulas used by Amazonian shamans before taking psychoactive powders. Note that though Sunday admission is free, groups of two or more are pressed into a ‘voluntary’ contribution.
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Museo Nacional de Historia Natural
If your kids have a taste for the bizarre, check out the dusty stuffed animals (we’re talking taxidermy, not teddies) in the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, where displays look almost as old as the fossils they contain.
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MAM Chiloé
Castro’s spacious MAM, features innovative works by contemporary Chilean artists, many of them Chilotes. It’s a fair hike from town, but worth it if you’re an art buff.
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Edificio de la Aduana & Museo Naval
Meter-thick walls enclose this haughty colonial-style customshouse, built in 1871 when Iquique was still Peruvian territory. Peru incarcerated prisoners here during the War of the Pacific, and the building would later see battle in the Chilean civil war of 1891. The Aduana houses a small naval museum with artifacts salvaged from the sunken Esmeralda, a plucky little Chilean corvette that challenged ironclad Peruvian warships in the War of the Pacific.
The ship was captained by Arturo Prat (1848-79), whose name now graces a hundred street maps, plazas and institutions. In an impassioned speech aboard the Esmeralda, Prat swore to die in battle and challenged his officers to…
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Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende
Picasso, Miró, Tápies and Matta are some of the artistic heavyweights who gave works to the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende. Begun as a populist art initiative during Allende’s presidency – and named in his honor – the incredible collection was taken abroad during the dictatorship, where it became a symbol of Chilean resistance. The 2000 works finally found a home in 2006, when the Fundación Allende bought and remodeled this grand old townhouse. The permanent collection sometimes goes on tour and is replaced by temporary exhibitions, and there’s a darkened room with an eerie display of Allende’s personal effects. Guided tours visit the basement, where you can s…
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Museo de Artes Visuales
Exposed concrete, stripped wood and glass are the materials local architect Cristián Undurraga chose for the stunningly simple Museo de Artes Visuales. The contents of the four open-plan galleries are as winsome as the building: top-notch modern engravings, sculptures, paintings and photography form the regularly changing temporary exhibitions. Admission includes the Museo Arqueológico de Santiago, tucked away on the top floor. The low-lighted room with dark stone walls and floors makes an atmospheric backdrop for a small but quality collection of Diaguita, San Pedro and Molle ceramics, Mapuche jewelry and Easter Island carvings.
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Museo Regional de La Araucanía
The Museo Regional de La Araucanía is housed in a handsome frontier-style building dating from 1924, this regional museum has permanent exhibits recounting the history of the Araucanían peoples before, during and since the Spanish invasion. A display on Mapuche resistance to the Spaniards illustrates native weapons, but overlooks the Mapuche's effective guerrilla tactics. There's a good photographic display of early Temuco, including buildings destroyed in the earthquake of 1960.
Everything is well presented but labeled in Spanish only. Bus 9 runs from downtown to Av Alemania, but it's also reasonable walking distance.
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Museo Histórico y de Armas
The imposing coffee-colored shoulder of rock, El Morro de Arica, looms 110m over the city. It makes a great place to get your bearings, with vulture-eye views of the city, port and Pacific Ocean. However, this lofty headland has a far greater significance to Chileans, for this was the site of a crucial battle in 1880, a year into the War of the Pacific. The Chilean army assaulted and took El Morro from Peruvian forces in under an hour. The story is told step by step in the flag-waving Museo Histórico y de Armas, which has information in Spanish and English. Look for plaques placed by ever military-minded Pinochet.
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Museo Histórico Nacional
Colonial furniture, weapons, paintings, historical objects and models chart Chile’s colonial and republican history at the Museo Histórico Nacional. After a perfunctory nod to pre-Colombian culture, the ground floor covers the conquest and colony. Upstairs goes from independence through Chile’s industrial revolution right up to the 1973 military coup but no further – Allende’s broken glasses are the chilling final exhibit. The Spanish-only explanations are only helpful if you’ve taken Chilean History 101, but English versions of the texts sell for CH$100 at the ticket counter.
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Museo Gabriela Mistral
The town’s landmark Museo Gabriela Mistral, between Riquelme and Baquedano, is a tangible eulogy to one of Chile’s most famous literary figures. Gabriela Mistral was born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga in 1889 in Monte Grande. The museum charts her life, from a replica of her adobe birthplace to her Nobel Prize, and has a clutch of busts making her seem a particularly strict schoolmarm. Her family tree indicates Spanish, indigenous and African ancestry. Like Pablo Neruda she served in the Chilean diplomatic corps.
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Museo del Mar Lord Cochrane
The Museo del Mar Lord Cochrane was built in 1842 for the dashing Scottish naval hero Lord Thomas Cochrane (who set up Chile's navy), but was never occupied by him. The building, a tile-roofed, colonial-style house above Plaza Sotomayor, held Chile's first astronomical observatory. There are few exhibits, but the patio has a stunning view over the harbor. To reach it take the Ascensor Cordillera (located one block north of Plaza Sotomayor) to Cerro Cordillera, then walk east to Merlet at the top of the ascensor.
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Museo Histórico y Arqueológico
Mapuche artifacts – including jewelry, musical instruments and roughly hewn wooden masks – are the focus of the Museo Histórico y Arqueológico, alongside the tourist office. Gracing the grounds is a Mapuche ruka, oblong-shaped with thatched walls and roof, traditionally built by four men in four days under a reciprocal labor system known as minga. Reeds from the lake provide the thatch, which is so skillfully intertwined that water cannot penetrate even in this very damp climate.
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Museo Colonial de San Francisco
Alongside Iglesia de San Francisco is the Museo Colonial de San Francisco. The dark and dusty rooms contain 17th-century colonial ecclesiastical art, as well as a creepy collection of whips and scourges used for penitential self-flagellation. A small room is rather randomly dedicated to poet Gabriela Mistral and includes correspondence and a replica of her Nobel medal. What the staff are most proud of, however, is their pet chicken, Martín, who patrols the palm- and creeper-filled courtyard.
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Museo Naval y Marítimo
Cannons still stand ready outside the Museo Naval y Marítimo. The contents suggest they’d rather like to fire them at Peru – much space is devoted to Chile’s victory in the 19th-century War of the Pacific. Other exhibits include historical paintings, uniforms, ship’s furniture, swords, navigating instruments and medals, all neatly displayed in exhibition rooms along one side of a large courtyard. Rattling Ascensor Artillería brings you here from Plaza Wheelwright.
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Regional Museum
Iquique’s former courthouse now hosts the catch-all regional museum, which earnestly recreates a traditional adobe altiplano village (complete with mannequins in Aymara dress). The surrounding chambers also have some attention-grabbing exhibits, from animal fetuses floating in formaldehyde to masked Chinchorro mummies and elongated Tiwanaku skulls. Interesting photographs also explore Iquique’s urban beginnings, and a fascinating display dissects the nitrate industry.
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Museo Regional
Across the street, the former Aduana (customshouse) was originally erected in Mejillones in 1869; it was dismantled and transported here piece by piece in 1888. It now houses the Museo Regional, which contains simplistic displays on natural history, and prehistoric and cultural development. Artifacts include mummified babies, a deformed skull, early colonial tidbits and paraphernalia from the nitrate era, including toys fashioned from tin cans.
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Museo Histórico y Antropológico
Museo Histórico y Antropológico, housed in a fine riverfront mansion on Isla Teja, is one of Chile’s finest. It features a large, well-labeled collection from pre-Columbian times to the present, with particularly fine displays of Mapuche Indian artifacts and household items from early German settlements. Take the bridge across the Río Valdivia, turn left at the first intersection and walk about 200m; the entrance is on the left (east) side.
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Museo de Bellas Artes
The Museo de Bellas Artes is housed in the Palacio Baburizza (1916). Designed for an Italian nitrate baron but named after the Yugoslav who purchased it from him, the Art Nouveau palace is noteworthy for imaginative woodwork, forged-iron details and a steeply pitched central tower. Set among attractive gardens, the building and grounds alone justify a visit. From here, it's possible to loop over to Cerro Concepción, or vice versa.
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Museo de Arqueología e Historia Francisco Fonck
The original moai (Easter Island statues) standing guard outside the Museo de Arqueología e Historia Francisco Fonck are just a teaser of the beautifully displayed archaeological finds from Easter Island within, along with Mapuche silverwork and anthropomorphic Moche ceramics. Upstairs are old-school insect cases and a lively explanation of how head shrinking works (finished examples are included).
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Museo de Ciencia y Tecnología
In the middle of Parque Quinta Normal there's an artificial lagoon where you can rent rowboats. Beyond the lagoon is the Museo de Ciencia y Tecnología, which has interactive exhibits on astronomy, geology and other aspects of science and technology.
Other museums in the park include the Museo Infantil and the open-air Parque Museo Ferroviario, which displays lovingly maintained steam locomotives.
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Museo Mineralógico
The must-see Museo Mineralógico literally dazzles. This tribute to the raw materials to which the city owes its existence displays a kaleidoscopic collection of more than 2300 samples, some as delicate as coral, others bright as neon under fluorescent light. The museum was founded in 1857 and supported by the Universidad de Atacama (successor to Copiapó’s famous School of Mines).
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Museo Regional Aurelio Bórquez Canobra
The Museo Regional Aurelio Bórquez Canobra, casually referred to as Museo Chilote, makes Ancud a worthwhile stop in itself. Looking more like a fortress than a museum, it has fantastic displays tracking the history of the island and a full-sized replica of the Ancud, which sailed the treacherous fjords of the Strait of Magellan to claim Chile’s southernmost territories.
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Museo San Francisco
Chillán's Museo San Francisco displays historical materials of the missionary order that, from 1585, settled in the area from Chillán in the north to Río Bueno in the south. It also includes letters from liberator Bernardo O'Higgins, who spent some of his childhood under the auspices of the Franciscan priests. The museum is in the church opposite Plaza General Lagos.
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Museo Regional de Castro
In the process of moving to a more attractive location along the waterfront, this museum, half a block from Plaza de Armas, houses a well-organized collection of Huilliche relics, musical instruments, traditional farm implements and exhibits on the evolution of Chiloé's towns. Its B&W photographs of the 1960 earthquake help you to understand the impact of the tragic event.
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