Valparaiso…again we say good bye to friends and get to meet new ones! And there is wine!!!

 Since this cruise is the conglomeration of several segment cruises, we once again send crew and passengers off to their homes and will ,by nightfall, be welcoming their replacements on board. The hardest goodbyes this time around are the crew members who have been with us from Milwaukee. Although they are excited to go home to families, we have also become part of their family so today is extra tears with our goodbyes. This crew has fufilled all our dreams and wishes,made us feel welcome and fixed any problem we had. Of the 200+ crew at least 60 are leaving to go home before they report back in January to their new contracts.

This was a special good by get together for the longitudinal passengers and crew to officially say our farewells. It was a couple of days before we reached Lima.. today is the actual day and there are lots of hugs and tears when we leave the ship for our tours,knowing they will be gone when we return. 

The tour choices today were to stay close and explore the port of Valparaiso or get on a bus for a ride (2 hrs away ) to the city of Santiago.  We decided we just needed an easy day, so chose to stay in port. Im glad we did! 

Yes, we are still smiling!

The port was kinda run down and full of ruined buildings but there are plans to beef up the passenger ship area. First and foremost this is a working port.

Every city has interesting sculpture!

We headed to the neighboring city, Viña Del Mar to visit a small museum. 

The drive is pretty 

Interesting buildings and then we pull up to the museum…

And see this! It was a gift from the community of Easter Island to the country of Chile and because of the collection in this museum of artifacts,this was the choice of where to display it. It was one of the smaller statues from the island.

The museum Fonk has one floor devoted to the Easter Island (Rapa Nui is the native name)and the second floor devoted to natural history..animals 

Ceremonial silver adornments

Small statuary. The theory is now that the statues are reminders of loved ones who have died. They were carved to remember them. 

Other wooden statuary. 

 

 

Amongst the collections is one collection that may be removed in the near future as it is controversial-the shrunken heads:

 I know I’ve seen this in another museum, but these were much more realistic and I can see why they might be removed…but I must admit, I wasn’t deterred from looking and taking a picture! 

From the museum our guide too us on a walk downhill to the next museum. It was a steep downhill but interesting murals and street scenes. Valparaiso has 47 hills I think he said.. here are some of the sights on our way to the fine arts

 

 

 

 

The story behind this museum: originally built by an Italian businessman who died befor ever setting foot in the house. It was sold to a Croatian single man who was extremely wealthy from his business with the Salt Peter mines in the area, he lived in the house by himself,built another house beside this one for his orphaned nieces and nephews…collected art but knew nothing much about it,died and family gave collection to the city….interesting collection of paintings

 the benefactor

The music room

Beautiful ceiling

He had a metal gate between the public parts of his house and the private area.

A tapestry (Italian) made just for around the dinning room fireplace.

The upstairs of the home had the city’s collection of paintings relating to the area and mostly by Chilean artists.

Outside the museum was a wonderful large patio space overlooking the city. 

 From here we took one of the 17 funicular cars down the hill. This one was built in 1902 and still functions well. It is one of the main ways for people to head up and down the hills in

Valparaiso.

The funicular dropped us off near the central square where we caught our buss back to the ship. It’s hard to think we saw so much in 3.5hours. We returned to the ship and rested up for our evening excursion…a wine tasting in Chilean wine country! Heading out of the city in the evening for a wine tasting

Countrysides of grape vines

Entering the village of Casablanca heading to the Casa Del Bosque vineyards and winery.

They had a lovely area set up for us with tasting stations, tables and music

 

Folkloric dancers,singers and musicians entertained

us

 

 

There were finger foods to go along with the wines. Empanadas,oysters,scallops,fried cheeses,artichoke salads annd more all served in an extremely attractive way. We ate and drank the evening away. Of course the wines were fabulous. A Sauvignon Blanc,a Shiraz and a Chardonnay.  

The ride back to the ship went fast and soon we were heading up the gangplank and pulling away from the dock. Another successful day!