Hi all. What a fun day we had today! We first started out with a tour guide taking us around the center city. His name was Carlos and he was hilarious! One of the craziest stories he told was about a women name Katarina who lived right next to one of the main churches in Santiago and she was from a very wealthy family but she had some very strange habits.
OK, don’t let the kids read this next part! In her bedroom she had a huge cross of Jesus Christ (the size like inside churches) and one night something very seedy was going on and she looked up and the face of Jesus Christ was looking down in shock and his face stayed that way! So she got nervous and threw the whole statue out the window.
The priests at the church she lived next to heard the loud crash and came outside and brought the statue into the church. They were amazed not only by the look on Jesus’s face but his crown of thorns had moved down from his head to around his neck. The minute they tried to move the crown, there was a massive earthquake that happened that destroyed a large part of Santiago.
Over the years, they kept trying to move the crown and every time someone tried another earthquake would happen. No one is really sure what happened to the original statue but a replica of it is housed in the church right across from where Katarina lived and I included a picture of it! Legend has it if you look directly into the eyes of Jesus, something terrible will happen to you! So look at the pic but don’t look in the eyes!!!!!!
This tour took us past some amazing old buildings with beautiful architecture. I won’t remember all of the names of them but I’ll include them and let you admire their beauty. At the main government building, it was all roped off and we couldn’t get too close due to the President from Columbus being there for a visit but I got a pic of all the soldiers lined up outside to greet him.
We then had a really nice lunch after the tour then decided to walk over to take either the cable car or the funicular up to the top of the highest point in Santiago to see the views. It’s called San Christobal.
When we got there both the cable car and funicular were closed but they did offer a bus up to the top which we took. Even after taking the bus you still had many steps to the top where a beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary stood watching over the city. We stayed there for awhile admiring the views then took the bus back down.
At the bottom, since we weren’t exactly sure how to walk back and our hotel was pretty far away we grabbed a taxi. The taxi car was pretty beat up and the driver seemed a little shaky but we were tired and decided what the heck. He ended up getting us to the hotel but not without traversing the entire city to get us there! We were starting to wonder whether he was kidnapping us or something! But even after all of that and for four of us it was only $6!! Lol. Everything is so cheap here!
After showering, changing and resting, we went out for a late dinner to a little Italian place just a few mins walk from our hotel called La Serrana. The pizza and pastas were amazing and were so good, we may go back there again tonight!
One more full day in Santiago today until we board the ship on Wednesday. Woo Hoo! I’m going to post this now and send the pics later. Have a great day!!
The Wandering Italian 