Local Exploration: National Maritime Museum and Cultural Quarter in Valparaiso Chile

A Day of History, Street Art, and Local Dining in Chile’s Port City

The Local Experience in Valparaiso

As expats making ourselves at home around the world, our first sightseeing activity after arriving in Vina del Mar for our five week stay was to visit the National Maritime Museum (Museu Maritimo Nacional) and the Cultural Quarter in Valparaiso. Valparaiso is the sister city of Viña del Mar and the apartment we stayed in was right on the border of the two. Since the Valparasio area is known for street art, we thought we’d take the day to wander around and see a bit of the town along with visiting the museum.

Since the National Maritime Museum is located at the top of Artillery Hill, and the funicular going up the side of the hill was closed, we grabbed a rideshare to dropped us off in front of the museum. This way we could save our legs and energy to explore the museum and the Cultural Quarter.

But before we entered the museum we walked over to Paseo 21 de Mayo which offers a scenic overlook of the port and harbor. The esplanade goes up around the side of the museum and, if you continue, into another neighborhood.

The variety of street art is astounding. From building sized murals to smaller graffiti, topics range political to spiritual to just ‘artistic’.

An Immersive Museum Experience

Our visit to the museum lasted over an hour and a half – significantly longer than most museum visits. The quality rivals the Maritime Museum in Lisbon, featuring:

• A comprehensive Pacific War (1879-1884) gallery with detailed murals
• The Valparaiso Naval Model Club’s impressive display
• Marine equipment exhibits
• Historical weapons collection
• Ships’ artifacts including wheels and carved pieces

The museum is very good. If you are even a little bit interested in naval or maritime history, this one is worth your time.

Fun Fact: The National Maritime museum was originally house aboard the armored ship “Huáscar”, in Talcahuano but it outgrew the ship!

Museum Essentials & Accessibility

There is a huge hall dedicated to the Pacific War (1879-1884) and this mural dominates the space

A series of panels below the mural describe the scenes

Personal weaponry is featured throughout; the War, art & Technology exhibit on the upper floor shows off some amazing craftsmanship on bladed weapons.

One exhibit hall is for the Marines. History and equipment are highlighted as well as a diorama of the amphibious assault at Pisagua near the beginning of the Pacific War.

This gallery includes a full ship’s wheel as well as several interesting carved pieces and a couple of figureheads.

The Naval Model Club of Valparaiso has a great display ranging from ship in a bottle models to dioramas of on-board battle scenes. Even a guy riding a sea serpent. There’s also this really big model…

There are displays of various torpedoes as well as various types of anti-ship mines. It is really a very thorough look at Chile’s naval history

Local Dining Discovery

After the museum we walked across the street to La Perla Cafeteria and had a very nice lunch that was a good value. Mechada Luco, Mechada Italiano, 2 leche con frutas (basically a milkshake made with milk rather than ice cream so not overly sweet), 2 cappuccinos and a very nice chocolate torte set us back US$28,99 La Perla is an interesting place; they offer coffee workshops and have a lot of kid-friendly stuff lying about.

Street Art and Urban Exploration

From there we made our way down, down, down the hill and across a small section of town to get to the promenade

The downtown core of Valparaiso is is in a bit of a transitional state. There is a good amount of construction going on but I fear a lot of these old buildings may just be too far gone to be saved. A casual visitor might not even be aware of these conditions; you have to get at least a couple of blocks off of the main thoroughfares to see it.

We ended up at the promenade – Muelle Prat if you’re looking on the map – near the aquarium. This is also very close to Mall Paseo del Puerto which has an interesting mix of shops but really appears to be more for tourists than locals. I mean, there’s even a row of parking spaces out front that are reserved for tourist vans.

The promenade is fairly short; it does give you an opportunity to see some ships up close and possibly even see some folks fishing off the end. There is a row of shops that looked like they primarily had mass-produced souvenir tchotchkes with a lesser selection of what may have been hand-made local goods. We didn’t investigate since we really don’t buy keepsakes anymore.

Altogether this was a good afternoon’s worth of activities; we initially arrived at Museo Maritimo Nacional at 12:20 and we finished up at Muelle Prat just before 17:00

Looking for guided tours and things to do in Valparaiso and Vina del Mar?

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