Valparaiso Vina del Mar and Casablanca Day Trip from Santiago

Casablanca Valley: the green gateway to the coast

About an hour west of Santiago, the highway drops out of the hills into the Casablanca Valley, a wide farming basin that owes its cool climate to the morning fog rolling in from the Pacific. The valley is one of Chile's best-known agricultural districts, with olive groves, orchards and rows of crops stretching between low ridges, and in spring the hillsides are green in a way that surprises travellers who expect a dry country. The tour makes its first stop here at a farm property with views over the valley.

The stop is relaxed: the guide explains how the fog and the coastal range shape what grows here, and you sample locally pressed olive oil with crackers before continuing to the coast. A Casablanca Valley tour is often sold on its own from Santiago, but combining it with Valparaíso and Viña del Mar in one day is the most efficient way to see the countryside and the coast together, with about 20 to 30 minutes at the stop.

Valparaíso: the hills, the funiculars and the port

Valparaíso was the main port of South America's Pacific coast in the nineteenth century, when ships rounding Cape Horn stopped here, and its merchants built banks, warehouses and mansions on a narrow strip of flat land, with workers' houses climbing the hills behind. The historic quarter became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. Today the hills of Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción are the heart of a Valparaíso guided tour: corrugated-iron houses painted in every colour, staircases covered in murals and viewpoints over the busy bay.

The tour combines a panoramic drive along the hills with a walk through the most attractive streets, about two hours in total. The city's funiculars, some running since the 1880s, link the port level with the hilltops; a ride is optional and paid on the spot, as is entry to the La Sebastiana house museum or the Maritime Museum. For anyone planning a Valparaíso day trip from Santiago, the guide's commentary is what turns a colourful city into an understandable one.

Viña del Mar: the Flower Clock and the seafront

Immediately north of Valparaíso, and almost joined to it, Viña del Mar is the opposite kind of city: planned avenues, palm trees, parks and a long seafront promenade that earned it the name Garden City. It grew in the early twentieth century as the resort where families from Valparaíso and Santiago spent the summer. The symbol of the city is the Flower Clock, a working clock face planted with thousands of flowers at the foot of Cerro Castillo, which has welcomed visitors since 1962.

The Viña del Mar tour from Santiago stops at the Flower Clock for photos and follows the seafront past the stone Wulff Castle on its rocky point and the sands of Playa Caleta Abarca. Depending on the day, there is time for a short walk along the promenade before the vehicle continues north. The best time to visit Viña del Mar is the southern summer, from December to March, when the flowers are at their fullest, but the coast is pleasant all year.

Reñaca beach

Reñaca is a beach district on the coast road north of Viña del Mar, where the hills come right down to the sea and apartment buildings step up the slopes in terraces facing the Pacific. The beach itself is long and wide, with sand dunes at its northern end and a promenade of cafés and ice-cream stands along the road. It is the most popular beach on this stretch of coast for families from Santiago, and in summer it is full of swimmers, sunbathers and beach volleyball.

On the tour, Reñaca is a photo and leg-stretch stop of around 20 to 30 minutes: time to walk on the sand, feel how cold the Pacific is here even in summer, and look back along the bay to Viña del Mar. The Humboldt Current keeps the water chilly all year, so the beach is more about the scenery than swimming for most visitors. From Reñaca the road climbs over the headland towards Concón and the last viewpoint of the day.

Oceanic Rock at Concón

Roca Oceánica, the Oceanic Rock, is a rocky promontory on the coast road between Reñaca and Concón, protected as a nature sanctuary for its granite formations, wildflowers and sea birds. A short loop path leads over the headland to the tip, where waves break against the rocks below and pelicans, cormorants and gulls wheel overhead. On clear days you can see north along the coast to Concón and the mouth of the Aconcagua river and south back towards Valparaíso.

The Oceanic Rock viewpoint is the last stop before the drive back to Santiago and takes about 20 minutes; the path is uneven but short. The wind is usually strong here, so keep a jacket handy even on a sunny day. From Concón the vehicle returns inland on the highway, with the guide answering questions on the way, and you are dropped back at your hotel in Santiago in the early evening, roughly 10 hours after pickup.