Corral Bay Forts

The Spanish fortified the mouth of the Valdivia river heavily from the seventeenth century, building a ring of gun batteries at Corral, Niebla, Amargos and on Isla Mancera that was regarded as the strongest defensive system on the Pacific coast of the Americas. In February 1820 Lord Cochrane, the Scottish naval officer commanding the new Chilean navy, took the whole system in a single night operation with a few hundred men, landing behind the batteries and rolling them up from the land side - a stroke that removed the last Spanish stronghold in southern Chile. The forts survive as walls, batteries and magazines, with the 1960 earthquake and tsunami having damaged parts.

What you actually see

• A ring of Spanish batteries - Corral, Niebla, Amargos and Mancera.
• Taken in a night in 1820 - by Cochrane's Chilean squadron.
• Attacked from behind - the batteries faced the sea, not the land.
• Earthquake damage - from the 1960 event and its tsunami.

When to go

December to March; the ferry and boats run year round but the weather is hard in winter. A full day.

Honest expectations

The forts are spread across several sites on both sides of the river and need boats or the ferry to link them. Opening hours are seasonal. Rain is frequent. Some sites are ruins with little interpretation.

Nearby

Valdivia is up the river; Niebla is across the mouth.