Santiago De Chile, the capital of Chile, is dignified, modest and European-looking and also lively, modern and full of Latin temperament, a city that has many green areas and a history that covers five hundred years.

The Plaza De Armas is the heart of the city and the historic centre of colonial Santiago that contains the city’s most important buildings.

The Museo Histórico Nacional is located in the Palacio Real Audiencia. It contains around twelve thousand exhibits that feature Chile’s history from pre-Columbian times right up to the twentieth century.

Strikingly dressed in black and white uniforms and brown caps, the soldiers of the guard march across the Plaza De La Constitution towards the La Moneda Palace, an elongated, strictly classical building whose white façade looks almost kitsch with the blue sky as its backdrop. Following restoration work, General Augusto Pinochet moved in and it has been the seat of government ever since. Dictatorship transformed into democracy!

The Parque Forestal is situated on the northern edge of the city centre along the Rio Mapocho, a park complex with various varieties of tree. Amid all the green is the German Fountain with, at its centre, a ship with heroic figures and huge birds of prey.

oday, the city is looking good and although with colonial roots, Santiago De Chile is now open-minded, modern and cosmopolitan.