Saturday

On Saturday we had another excursion. This one was to Pablo Neruda’s house in Valparaíso, “La Sebastiana”, and to an open-air museum. The first picture is of the view from his house, which were the only pictures we were allowed to take from inside the house. Sad, because his houses are really interesting—he collected all sorts of random things. Colored glass bottles, ship models and ship parts, interesting artwork, all sorts of knick-knacks. The walls are all painted in bright colors too. The second picture is from the outside, of the house itself.




The open-air museum was interesting. Not really my kind of art, but interesting because it was all of Valparaíso in one area. The magnificent views, the bright houses, winding streets, etc. The Museo a Cielo Abierto (translates directly—open-sky museum) is a series of 20 murals, commissioned by my university in 1992, painted by famous Chilean artists on the sides of houses and apartment buildings along a few streets clustered on the Cerro (hill) Bellavista. Some of them represent things that unify all of Chile—mountains, like in Mural 12 (the first mural below), or bread (not posted). Not all of the murals are quite as random and abstract as these two, but pretty close. The first picture here is just of a row of houses along the way, another view you’ll find on a lot of postcards and things.