Isla Negra

Pablo Neruda bought a stone cabin on this shore in 1939 and spent the next thirty years extending it into a house shaped like the thing he collected most: ships. It is low and narrow with plank floors and beamed ceilings, full of figureheads salvaged from wrecks, ships in bottles, bowsprits, shells, coloured glass, masks and narwhal tusks, arranged as a working environment rather than a display. He wrote a good deal of the Canto General here. The house was restored and opened as a museum in the 1990s, and Neruda and Matilde Urrutia are buried in the garden, looking at the sea.

The main sights

• A house built like a ship - extended over thirty years from a stone cabin.
• Figureheads, bottles and shells - the collections he lived among.
• Restored as a museum - opened to visitors in the 1990s.
• Two graves in the garden - Neruda and Matilde Urrutia, above the sea.

When to go

Year round; booking helps in summer. Half a day.

Good to know

Entry is on timed audio-guided tours and photography inside is prohibited. It books out in January and February. The village around is small.

Nearby

Algarrobo and El Quisco are north; Cartagena is south.

Key facts