Santa Lucia Park (SL Hill), Huelén (original Name)

 

It was called Huelén by indigenous people; this Word means Sorrow, sadness or melancholy, this place use to be a sacred area where Indians made rituals to venerate their gods.

Then in 1541 Spanish soldiers commanded by Pedro de Valdivia got to this hill, and from here they had a perfect view to plan the new City of Santiago and also they were protected by the river called Mapocho that use to surround the hill at that time, from possible Indian attacks.

During the colony period this place didn’t suffer important changes and still kept the rocky and dry aspect until 1872 when Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna an intendant of Santiago decides to transform this rocky mountain into a green park when the city of Santiago was growing from the historical neighborhood to new areas.

The works had a length of two years and they use prisoners to make this possible, one of the hits inside this new park was Castillo Hidalgo that was the indigenous museum also the park counted on a scientific earthquake studies center and the observatory that gave an important social activity to this place.

In between 1897 and 1903 the architect Victor Villenueve built the main entrance, on the main avenue “Alameda”(current Libertador Bernardo O´Higgins) the original idea was to honor Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna with a monument on the central fountain, but, the government didn’t have money enough to built the monument, that’s why it was replaced by Neptune that was at the west side of the hill.

At present Santa Lucia continues been a social and events center that usually is required by politicians, business groups, TV shows, visual artists and citizens that want to enjoy one of the most beautiful places in Santiago, also it has a very nice lookout at 70mts high, where you’ll have a panoramic view of the city.

A Little Tip

Meanwhile you´re in Santiago perhaps a tour is a good idea and if it is for free, even better.
The city hall tourist information office has free walking tours of 1:30 hr lenght. visiting the main Square, the Cathedral, the civic neighbourhood until La Moneda Palace.

it start at 10:00 am at the tourist information center at the north side of Plaza de Armas
on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
No registration required.
Subway Station: Plaza de Armas.

Also Santa Lucia Park is posible to visit, the tour here start on mondays at 10:00 am then on weekends (sat/sun) at 10:00 am, the meeting point is at the tourist information center inside Santa Lucia.
No registration required.
Subway Station: Santa lucia.

A new one: also at the City Hall tourist information centre now you can make a tour through  the churches of the historical neighbourhood, visiting Santo Domingo, Catedral de Santiago, La merced, San agustin and San francisco, the last one is the oldest building in the city.

it start at 10:00 am at the tourist information center at the north side of Plaza de Armas
every tuesday

No registration required.
Subway Station: Plaza de Armas.

CATEDRAL DE SANTIAGO (cathedral of Santiago).

Location: Plaza de Armas

Phone: 6718105

Web site: http://www.iglesiadesantiago.cl/

Opened: Monday to Sunday, every days of the year, from 9:00 am to 19:00 hrs.

Subway station: Plaza de Armas.

At the beginning this was the main altar or church when the City was created by Pedro de Valdivia and his men, then in 1561 the Pope “Pio IV” declared this city as the headquarters of bishopric, in this moment the church became into the Cathedral of the new city.

The temple fell several times, owing to earthquakes and burn outs, but finally in 1748 Matias Vasquez Acuña built a stronger and bigger building that had the main entrance at the square “Plaza de Armas”.

In 1780 the Italian architect Joaquin Toesca was asked to design the facade in neoclassical style. Giving a new aspect to the square area.

Ending the XIX century the archbishop “Mariano Casanova” ordered to add some changes to the temple and hired “Ignace cremonesi” also an Italian architect, that complete the work of  Toesca adding Domes or cupolas on the roof top, and putting some statues that decorate and give the final appearance that we see today.

NATIONAL HISTORY MUSEUM

                      

National History Museum

Plaza de Armas # 951

Phone: 633 04 62

Web site: http://www.dibam.cl/historico_nacional

Opened Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:30 hrs.

Subway Station: Plaza de Armas (green line Nº 5)

It was created by decree in May 2^nd, 1911. Owing to influences of Joaquin Figueroa Larraín the senator at that time, the first pieces of the national museum came from the old indigenous museum, created by Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna in Santa Lucia Park. also it received some objects from the National History Gallery created by Miguel Luis Amunategui in 1876 and from the military museum inaugurated in 1893 at the war academy building.

At the beginning The National History Museum was located at the Fine Arts Museum Palace then when the collection was growing, some other pieces were located at the National Library Building, but, the continuous lack of  space was the reason to decide to move out all the collection to the Royal Audience Palace, been inaugurated in 1982.

The collection counts with a variety of objects from the pre Hispanic period, conquest, colony, independence, Republic and modern times until 1973.

Plaza de Armas

It is located among Monjitas, Puente, Estado and Merced Streets.

This is the main block of the city and it marks the central point of distances, social and religious events and the city hall building, the downtown area is designed from this square as a chess table, this kind of urban design was a common way to built cities in the Spanish colony period.

In 1541 Pedro de Valdivia asked this request to Pedro de Gamboa known as the “Alarife” that used a cord called “Vara” (each vara has 100 mts. aprox.), finally the original design counted with 18 blocks taken up by the men that joined Valdivia on the expedition.

Then this area was a flat land only with a central  fountain which was the city water supply the rest of the place was used to put the food market, also neighbors of Santiago used to celebrate events, welcoming gobernors, proclamations and religious ceremonies.

On its surrounding places Spanish put the main government buildings such as the Cabildo, the Royal Audience, and the house of the governor, also on the next corner they put the main altar that finally becomes into the cathedral.

This square has suffered four big Changes, in 1681 when the fountain got the water that comes from “Quebrada San Ramón”(Quebrada means something similar to cliffs, but with some water floods on it), in 1836 when the central fountain was changed by the new fountain known as “monument to America’s liberty”, the old fountain was put inside the current government palace “La Moneda”, this change was the first step of a restructuring work commanded by the minister Diego Portales and Intending José de Cavareda, then the square gets a new aspect with more facilities for recreation, trade and business, in 1896 a big central garden was added to the square and further some other little gardens appear containing exotic trees and flowers, also in this period the electric light was put in use giving a modern aspect to the area, in 1997 “METRO” the subway company put a new station underneath the main square, the works had a length of two years, giving the final and new aspect to the place, the project was asked to the architect Rodrigo Perez de Arce, anyway this final change keeps the monuments inside, such as the central fountain, the monument to Pedro de Valdivia, and the monument to indigenous population.

GENERAL INFORMATION OF SANTIAGO

it´s coordinates are 33º26´13´´ S and 70º39´02´´ W, the city itself is 543 meters above the sea level, it has a population that gets over six million people, the last census in 2002 the population was 5.428.590 thou.

it´s weather is mild temperate

the official spoken language is Spanish, but you have to consider that people in chile handle a lot of new words, modals and accent.

the official currency is CLP (Chilean peso), also dollars are received in some places like Hotels, Restaurants and Sports events, anyway I recomend to get Chilean currency for anything else you need.
the official time is:
winter   - 4 GMT
summer  -3 GMT

country phone code is 56
Santiago area  code is 2

tourist information offices are:

at the main square Plaza de Armas
Opened monday to friday from 9:00 am to 18:00 hrs., and from 10:00 am to 16:00 hrs. on weekends
Phone: (56)(2)7136744
Subway station: Plaza de Armas

at Santa Lucia hill
Opened  monday to thursday 9:00 am to 18:00 hrs. fridays from 9:00 am to 17:00 hrs, and 10:00 am to 16:00 hrs on weekends.
Phone: (56)(2)6644220
Subway station: Santa Lucia

at Sernatur ( National Tourism Service) on Providencia Avenue #1550
Opened  Monday to Friday from 9:00 am to 18:30 hrs, Saturday from 9:00 to 14:00 hrs.
Phone: (56)(2)7318336
Subway station: Manuel Montt

History of the city - Santiago de Chile

           Is a considered fact that indegenous people lived in this area over 10.000 years ago as a nomadic groups that used to follow the rivers searching for water, fruits and also took the advantage to hunt some animals could aproach to drink some water.

           We have found evidence that told us that 900 years B.C. this groups of people evolved and developed several techniques of agriculture and pottery that transformed the way of life for this groups and allow them to settle down into a specific area.

The Incas:
    
          In the current land of chile during the reign of  "Tupac Yupanqui" (1438-1471) the conquest of Diaguita people in the nothern valleys and also "Picunches" that used to live in the central valley, known at that time as Aconcagua valley took part, expanding in this way their empire even to the sorrounding area of "Maule River" where the battle of Maule decides the limits between "Picunches Promaucaces" and the Inca empire forces.

The Spanish:

           In 1532 the first spanish expedition inside the "Tawantinsuyu" or Inca empire, commanded by Francisco Pizarro achieves the control by "Atahualpa" kidnap, that finally means the end of the empire, then in 1536 a soldier called Diego de Almagro, ask for permission to come to this lands searching for gold and fortune, he took the mountain range path during winter, this was a bad choice and killed more than 50% of his men, finally when he got to chile, unfortunelly for his purposes didn´t find any gold, then he returned to Peru, this time they took the desert path and finally when they got to el Cuzco, they said that in Chile only exists an useless metal called cooper.         

           Four years later another spanish soldier called Pedro de Valdivia also asked for permission to explore Chile but he wasn´t interested in gold, was looking for honor and glory, thus Valdivia left "El Cuzco" the firsts days of 1540 with a few men and one spanish woman called "Ines Xuarez".

           Then they got to Aconcagua valley almost 1 year later in december of  that year, and finally they stablish their camp on "Huelén" hill the firsts days of february in 1541 and finally in February 12th Valdivia stablished and found the city, called "Santiago de la nueva extremadura"