Valparaiso, I enjoyed its vastness
Text | Liu Han Figure | Katz
I enjoyed its vastness, its gracious vastness,
But it can't put its colorful right side, its newborn left side,
Its mountains and deep valleys can be seen from within.
"I'm a little tired of Santiago, and I want to find a house in Valparaiso to live and write. The house cannot be too low or too high, independent and not remote, retro and comfortable, away from the hustle and bustle but convenient to live, the neighbors are smart and friendly but do not invade privacy. Do you think I can find a house like this? In 1959, Neruda wrote such a sentimental letter to a friend, and such a house was finally found by him in the quiet Cerro Bellavista. The house was renovated in 1961, and on September 18 of that year, Neruda invited many friends to a completion party in the new house. Since then, this loft, along with the poems written by Neruda here, has become Valparaiso's best tourist card.
In fact, as early as when Neruda was still in college in Santiago, the most wayward period of his youth when he wrote "Twenty Love Poems and a Desperate Song", he often jumped into the third class carriage of Valparaiso with his fellow painters and poet friends who were also in his twenties.
Valparaiso in the 1920s was no longer prosperous, but it was the most suitable for literary and artistic youth to dream all the time! On those winding mountain roads, the young Neruda had encountered too many "sacred lunatics": naturalists who specialized in collecting grass and trees, smelling grass, and preaching vegetarianism; retired seamen who had been doing hermit exercises on the balcony for many years and exposing a harp-like rib; there were lonely explorers who had a house full of holy relics but were dying of old age; and there were old gentlemen who always rode out in a luxurious carriage, wore a cloak, a silver sword at their waist, and a pure green parrot crouched on their shoulders. He had asked around: Were there any other freaks in Valparaiso? Perhaps it was these eccentrics who enlightened and seduced his madness of going around the world in the future, and decades later, he himself finally became a "sacred madman" with a room full of bizarre collections.
In his later years, Neruda wrote a "Vagrant of Valparaiso", and since then Valparaiso has not needed any other travel books and guide words, from the glorious port life in the dark to the small worlds that no one cares about, he has exhausted the vocabulary of the world, and he has told all the secrets of this small city. "One ship brought a grand piano; another carried Gauguin's Peruvian grandmother; and another, the Vejer, on which sat the living prototype of Robinson Crusoe... There were also ships carrying pineapples, coffee, peppers from Sumatra, bananas from Guayaquil, jasmine tea from Assam, Spanish fennel..." All the strange and bizarre phrases were juxtaposed, and the port before us went back to that glorious time.
Once a transit point for ships around the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America, Valparaiso flourished in the 16th century, with a large number of European immigrants settling here, and the famous colorful houses were also laid out along the mountains in that era. After the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, ships no longer detoured across the Strait of Magellan, the port economy declined, and it was exacerbated by multiple earthquakes. More and more Chileans are leaving the area and moving to Santiago or neighboring Vina del Mar. Neruda had said earlier, "It shakes in the air, dies, and then comes back to life." For nearly 10 years, Valparaíso has been rejuvenated by tourism, becoming not only a stopover for numerous cruise ships, but also a fruit export distribution center for Chile, and was named a "World Heritage Site" by UNESCO in 2003. Tourists from all over the world flock to the sea from the poet's window, and they are also struck by the "city that sinks to the sky".
Valparaiso, which means Paradise Valley in Spanish, is a small town like a theater, the Pacific Ocean is a natural stage, and the city side is a grandstand, spreading from the low sea to the mountain. Buildings are built on the mountain, houses are built by the sea, colorful houses pour down, and church spires are dotted among them. Purple with yellow, magenta with cobalt blue, green with purple. Graffiti and wild dogs are everywhere.
Built between 1883 and 1916, there are still a few mountain trams in operation, and visitors will squeeze their ticket stubs, wait for the wooden carriages to fall slowly, and then push the heavy rust turnaround door, like a time machine back to the past, on those lush and scarred hills, waiting to meet the poet Neruda.
Chileans gathered thousands of people in honor of Neruda and wrote a 1,676-meter-long scroll of poetry on the steps of Valparaiso.
“
these
Ladder yo
”
How many ladders are there? How many steps does the ladder have? How many feet are on the steps? How many centuries have you been walking up and down the stairs with books, tomatoes, fish, bottles, and flour? How many thousands of hours does it take to wear the stairs into grooves where the rain can frolic or cry? No city like Valparaiso threw the ladder into its own history like a petal, sprinkled it on its cheek, blew it into the air, and collected it again. There are not so many wrinkles on the faces of any city, and life rushes up and down in it, as if they are forever reaching upwards to heaven, or downward to new life. These steps give birth to a purple-red spiny thistle halfway through! Along these steps, the sailor who had returned from Asia climbed up and found nothing but a new smile or an unbearable vacancy in his home! From these steps a rickety drunk fell like a black meteor! The sun rises from these stairs to show love to Yamaoka! If we walked all the stairs of Valparaiso, we could probably circle the earth. - Neruda, "The Tramp of Valparaiso"
Valparaiso · Walk around the map
A: Neruda's former home
House Museum La Sebastiana
Named La Sebastiana, the house is located on the peaceful hill of Cerro Bellavista. The house resembles a ship because Neruda loves the sea and dreamed of becoming a crew member as a child. The house is divided into five floors, maintaining the same ascending hill as the location, and each floor offers breathtaking views of the bay.
B: Open-air museum
Open Sky Museum
Named a museum, it is actually a very distinctive graffiti area, which is a general term for graffiti created by students of the Faculty of Arts of Catholic University from 1969 to 1973 on more than 20 walls, attracting many photography enthusiasts to shoot here. Once upon a time, sailors and dockmen living here needed to paint passing ships with fresh paint and use the remnants to beautify their houses, which is said to be the source of Valparaiso's graffiti culture.
Valparaíso's graffiti walls have become one of the most important tourist attractions, and from 1969 to 1973, students of the Faculty of Arts of the Catholic University painted graffiti on more than 20 walls, and later artists have added paintings to the present.
Among the many street graffiti in Valparaiso, this one is so famous, can you recognize them all? From left: Mistral, Allende, Neruda, Rodriguez, Parra and Brest, a high-end meal for left-wing revolutionaries of the last century.
C: Rail cable car
Concepcion Elevator
The cable car system, which was built from 1883 to 1916, was once the main artery of the city's longitudinal flow, and four are still in operation today. Because of its highly inclined design, the World Heritage Committee declared the cable car system one of the world's 100 endangered historical and cultural treasures in 1996.
D: Lutheran Church
Lutheran Church
In 1897, German immigrants built the first Lutheran church in South America. In 1906, Valparaiso was hit by an earthquake of magnitude 8.4, which severely damaged the top tower and restored it to its present appearance, which is still a typical Germanic church.
E:Cerros Concepcion& Alegreい
Adjacent to The Concepcion and Alegre are slightly elevated, with their unique architecture, monuments, restaurants, bars and craft shops on the hill, both of which are representative of the bohemian culture of Valparaíso, don't miss them. There are also family hotels and youth hostels converted from residential buildings, which are prime locations for accommodation.
F: Grand Plaza Sotomayor
Sotomayor Square
Get out of the Bohemian mood and take the Ascendor El Peral down the cable car to the Grand Plaza de Sotomayor. In the middle of the square stands a monument commemorating Chile's heroes who died in the Pacific War. The monument is set against the backdrop of the Chilean Naval Building and faces the bustling port of Valparaíso.
G: Trail on May 21
Paseo 21 de Mayo
The Ascensor Artilleria Cable Car is the means of transport to Cerro Artilleria Artillery Hill, located at the top of the Paseo 21 de Mayo Trail, which has an unobstructed view of Valparaíso, making it an important strategic defensive location. Museo Naval Y
The Maritimo Naval Museum is located in this square.
H: Naval Museum
Naval and Maritime Museum
With a glorious history of Chile's victories in the wars against Peru and Bolivia in the 19th century, it features more than 3,000 physical exhibits and more than 30,000 books and documents that are not to be missed by lovers of military history.
A poetic typography and creation, welcome to read