San Antonio is the current port city that cruise ships are using as a gateway to Santiago, Chile's capital city. It used to be Valparaiso, which is a very nice city on the coast, but someone decided that they didn't want cruise ships coming there any longer, so San Antonio said "hey! We'll be glad to take them and collect port fees." And so here we are, or were.
My second visit here to San Antonio, my fourth visit to this general port area. The city, to me, is bustling and "porty", and not all that attractive, in my humble opinion. It looks run down and sad, at least the portions of the city and outlying areas that we drove through, on our way to a nearby winery. Well, it was about an hour's drive away, into the Casablanca wine region. Located about 2 miles from the ocean, Casa Marin, in the San Antonio Valley, is an avant-garde winery known for producing award-winning savignon blancs and pinot noirs. We stopped here for a tour of the vineyard and winery, including a tasting of 4 different wines, none of which were their premium ones.
I was not impressed, although I liked the dog that trailed along the tour with us. The nearby village of Lo Abarca was also nice to drive through, as they had some beautiful mosaics along the road. Casa Marin also boasted a few mosaics of their own, which were, to me, the highlight of the visit, other than the aforementioned dog...........
This fellow, below, is the guardian of the winery.
Random artwork, especially of a blue zebra. My granddaughter, Yuval, (age 5) had just told me the day before I was here that she had been to the zoo and her favorite animal was the zebra.
This picture is for her.
Some nice mosaics along the road, in the town, and within the winery.
Another long drive and we arrived at a small town known for its pottery, Pomaire. There was a set menu lunch waiting at a restaurant for us, which was pricey and just okay food. And, we didn't have a lot of time there, so once we finished eating, there was all of 3 minutes or so to see the pottery in the town. Which meant, we didn't see the pottery in the town. We drove down it's one street and hoped for the best, looking out the windows.
Again, another long drive out to the seaside home of the famous Chilean Nobel prize-winning writer and poet, Pablo Neruda. It is a lovely home situated on the cliffs above the beach, and Neruda's grave is there, along with his wife's. But we didn't have time to go inside the small home. So.
Overall, a rather disappointing day. Maybe I should have stayed on the ship and enjoyed the quiet.
Stay tuned for more Pig Tales!
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