Vina del Mar

Vina del Mar grew from the 1870s as the seaside resort for Santiago and Valparaiso money, laid out with gardens, palms and mansions, and it still works that way - long beaches, a casino from 1930, and a summer population several times the resident one. Its Festival Internacional de la Cancion, held each February in the Quinta Vergara amphitheatre since 1960, is the largest music festival in Latin America by audience and is broadcast across the continent; the crowd's reputation for turning on performers is part of the event's folklore. In the Fonck museum garden stands a genuine moai brought from Easter Island, one of the few outside the island.

History

The Changos, who fished this coast, called the valley Peuco, and after the Spanish conquest it was split into two large haciendas. Francisco Javier Alvares let the Santiago-Valparaíso railway cross his land, the railway engineer José Francisco Vergara married his granddaughter Mercedes Alvares, and Vergara founded the city on 28 December 1874, hiring engineers to lay out its streets; a sugar refinery from 1873 and the firm of Lever, Murphy & Co. from 1883 drove its growth, the municipal theatre opened in 1925, the casino on 31 December 1930, the O'Higgins Hotel in 1936 and the Miramar in 1945, and in 1962 it was one of the four host cities of the football World Cup (Wikipedia, Viña del Mar).

The main sights

• A resort laid out from the 1870s - gardens, palms and mansions.
• The February song festival - the largest in Latin America by audience.
• A casino from 1930 - on the seafront.
• A genuine moai - in the Fonck museum garden.

When to go

Year round; February for the festival, when the city is full. A full day.

Good to know

The beaches are cold - this is the Humboldt current - and swimming is bracing at best. February prices and crowds are extreme. The seafront is high-rise.

Nearby

Valparaiso is next door; Renaca and Concon are north along the coast.

Key facts