Frutillar

Frutillar Bajo runs along the shore of Lake Llanquihue with Osorno directly across the water, and it is the most carefully kept of the German colonist towns - timber houses, gardens, and a German colonial museum with reconstructed farm buildings and a working water mill. Since 2010 it has also had the Teatro del Lago, a concert hall built out over the lake in timber and copper with a main auditorium seating around a thousand and acoustics designed for orchestral work, which was an unlikely thing to build in a town of a few thousand people and has become the base of a long-running summer music festival.

What you actually see

• Colonist timber houses and gardens - along the lake shore.
• A museum with a working mill - the German colonial collection.
• The Teatro del Lago - a concert hall built out over the water.
• Osorno across the lake - directly opposite the front.

When to go

December to February; late January for the music festival. A full day.

Honest expectations

Concert tickets sell out for the festival and accommodation with it. The town is small and quiet outside summer, with much of it closed. Rain is frequent. The volcano view depends entirely on cloud.

Nearby

Puerto Varas is south round the lake; Puerto Octay is north.