January 7,

Up and about we began with our Javas and breakfast of  muesli, trail mix and yogurt. My new coffee is good, but I miss my Jamaican Me Crazy blend. My back is good and my cold is gone. Jeff is better already too! Yahoo!!  

Around 1100, we went out for a walkabout. We decided to go to the Museo Palacio Vergara. The building was originally a palace for the Vergara family, commissioned in 1906 after a large earthquake destroyed the family mansion. Blanca Vergara the daughter of Guillermo, a mining magnate, lived here some of her life. Anyway the museum has been a Historical Monument since 2008 and houses the Vina del Mar Museum and School of Fine Arts. It is free. We entered the grand building which is a work of art itself. The outside is considered Venetian Neo-Gothic with its arched windows, upper level and open multi-arched covered entry, lower level. Beautiful! Inside the building were grand ceilings and wood floored rooms lined with many paintings, statues, and even a beautiful high glossed wood piano. We spent over an hour meandering the two floors of art works. When we finished inside the Palace, we went out onto the grounds. It was supposed to be a botanical garden, but ended up what we would call a lawn around the building with a wild growth of unmaintained weeds behind. There were a large number of huge trees, that still had placards naming them. But overall it was disappointing as the grounds of the palace were quite extensive.

After we finished, we went to a Peruvian restaurant, El Bitute, for lunch. We had Carne Al Jugo (Meat in gravy) with a salad and Tallarin Saltado de Cerno (Stir-fried Pork Noodles) with chicken broth soup. Both dishes were great and hit our spots. We split a bottle of water. It is just good to be out, enjoying. We paid 14,870 CLP, or $16.60. We left and stopped at a bakery getting a blueberry coffee cake/pastry. (We will take it back for later.) 

We walked until we came to the funicular we had been seeing. It was open and working so we boarded with locals. Funiculars in the cities here were built long ago but continue to be used daily since there are such steep streets! The one way ride up only cost us 400CLP, which is 45 cents. It was fun, but mostly it got us up so we walked mostly downhill back to our place. 

We relaxed and Jeff took a siesta. I worked on one of his “new to him” shirts. It had some snagged areas that we had not noticed. Anyway, supper was leftover sushi and that yummy blueberry crumble cake. Then we watched a Star Wars episode. Great day!