Springtime in Santiago -- in September!

September and springtime in Santiago. Larry had business in Santiago the first week in September allowing me the opportunity to visit a neighborhood called Bellavista where I found flowering plum trees and brightly colored homes.

One of the many outdoor restaurant located in Patio Bellavista. There are also a lot of "tiendas" in Patio Bellavista, as well as the neighborhood, where you can buy jewelry and other tourist-type ... stuff.

Miguel and Eliana are our Chilean friends that we were lucky enough to spend time with when we all lived in Peru. They took us to a restaurant area in Santiago called Bordo Rio where we were able to choose from Chilean, Italian, Argentinian, pizza, sushi, etc. We went with Italian!

Santiago in the El Bosque neighborhood where there are several hotels, restaurants as well as Juan Valdez coffee shops and Starbucks! Juan coffee rules! (That is Larry on the left in this photo.)

On Saturday, we arranged for a taxi to drive us to the community of Los Andes about 45 miles northeast of Santiago to see the countryside and...to locate the CALA factory (Ceramica Artistica Los Andes). We had heard of (and seen) the dishes that are made here. This picture is of Larry paying for our purchase and now we wait 60 days for delivery of these handpainted dishes.

We very much enjoyed the countryside on our drive to Los Andes. It rained most of the day -- was wonderful but can imagine how pretty the countryside must be on a clear day without the smog and tall buildings of Santiago hiding our view of the Andes. We're looking east towards Argentina.







Below are photos from the home, located in Bellavista, of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. He had three homes in Chile which have all been turned into museums. I loved the patio area. The photo with the young people is directly outside of the entrance.