Valdivia

Valdivia sits where three rivers meet before running to the sea, and it has a character quite unlike anywhere else in Chile thanks to the German families who settled here in the nineteenth century and left behind breweries, riverside mansions, cake shops and a general air of the Baltic transplanted to Patagonia's northern edge. The riverfront market is the centrepiece, where fishmongers clean the catch while enormous sea lions haul out at their feet and bellow for scraps, a spectacle that draws as many onlookers as customers. Boats run downriver to a chain of seventeenth-century Spanish forts built to guard the estuary, notably Niebla and Corral, and the city has good museums, a strong university presence and a beer culture that predates the country's craft boom by a century. The great earthquake of 1960, the most powerful ever recorded, reshaped the land and rivers around it.

History

Before the Spanish, a large Huilliche village called Ainil stood where downtown Valdivia is now, a trading port described as a kind of little Venice for its wetlands and canals, whose market took shellfish and fish from the coast and crops from inland - the riverside Feria Fluvial is a remnant of that trade. Juan Bautista Pastene reached the estuary in 1544 and named the river after Pedro de Valdivia, who founded the city in 1552 as Santa María la Blanca de Valdivia, then the southernmost Spanish settlement in the Americas; it prospered on gold from Villarrica, Madre de Dios and Osorno, known in Lima as "gold from Valdivia", built the largest ships in the Kingdom of Chile, and was badly damaged by a great earthquake on 17 March 1575 (Wikipedia, Valdivia).

The main sights

• The riverside fish market - the catch, the stalls and the sea lions demanding scraps.
• The Spanish forts - Niebla, Corral and Mancera guarding the river mouth.
• The German heritage - breweries, mansions and cake shops of the settler families.
• The rivers - boat trips downstream through the wetlands to the coast.

When to go

December to March is the southern summer and by far the driest; Valdivia is one of the wettest cities in the country and rain is likely at any other time. The beer festival in the summer is a local institution. Sea lions are at the market year-round but most numerous when the fishing is good.

Good to know

It rains a great deal, and outside high summer visitors should plan for it rather than hope. The sea lions are wild and large and people get far too close for photographs, which is how bites happen. The forts require a boat trip or a drive and half a day. The city is pleasant rather than spectacular, and works best as a couple of relaxed days rather than a headline destination.

Nearby

The lake district and Osorno volcano are inland; the coastal reserves and Corral lie downriver.

Key facts