atrevido

Before our tour we have 2 full days in Santiago. The tour takes us to the pre-columbian museum and we're staying at the Grand Hyatt on Kennedy. Is this a good spot? I cannot seem to find it very well on google earth. Is it near a metro station?

Any suggestions on what to do or rather, what not to miss in those 2 days I'd appreciate it. We were thinking of maybe going to Maipo Canyon but am not sure it's worth it.

Thanks

atrevido

Santiago, Chile
Wanted to also let you know that we're there Saturday and Sunday and someone told me that lots of things are closed on Sundays.....

We will not be doing any other tour controlled things in chile besides the pre-columbian museum.

We will be back in Santiago for one night and hope to go out and have a great dinner somewhere, we're staying in downtown santiago on that leg at the Diego de Almagra

Huentetu

Saturday and Sunday are fine for museums (many are free on Sundays) and sights and only difficult for restaurants in the evening.
When you do the Pre-columbian museum will they take you other places? if not, there are lots of other things to see downtown on your own.
The Hyatt is about a 15 minute walk to a metro station, so not that central but a great hotel. Just nearby is a mall called Parque Arauco which is the starting point for a hop on hop off bus around Santiago called Turistik. The full circuit takes 2 hours, I think and costs about US$30 pp. They also do three other day trips which are in smaller vehicles.One of them is to the Maipo Canyon.
http://tinyurl.com/268u29
www.turistik.cl/
You could go to the office there (easily spotted because of the red buses) and see what the tours include.
In the outside area of the same mall is the Boulevard Arauco, a collection of restaurants of every type and price range. On weekends there will be some sort of live music in the patios where the restaurants are. It sounds awful when you say by mall, but it is really quite fun and locals love it. One advantage is that you will always find somewhere open to eat there even on a Sunday evening.

veronana70

I just returned from 10 days in Chile for the Christmas holidays. The Hyatt is in a nice location, but i dont think there's a Metro anywhere near. I found Santiago to be nice- but not as nice as the rest of Chile. I did, however, have some great meals in Santiago. I think my best one was at Astrid and Gaston. My CLOSE second best was at Europeo. I also went to Bristol, which was recommended by Fodors but found it unimpressive and the decor was kind of yucky. The food was good, but not memorable. Another spot i went to was an empanada joint called El Rapido, right by the Precolumbian Museum. It was an experience during the peak of lunch time! The blue collar workers rubbing elbows with the Justice Dept folks, all nibbling on delicious fried, artery blocking empanadas with a dabble of pico de gallo. My favorite were the cheese empanadas, although the Pino (meat) ones were yummy as well. I downed that with a Diet Coke and all was okay with the world. I met an interesting gent there from the World Bank, who helped me navigate through the ordering-paying system they have in place. Santa Lucia park by the PreColum museum gave us some great views of Santiago!

atrevido

Thanks so much Huento for the recommendations, thru your links above I found this link http://ingles.findoutsantiago.cl/sta...o=10&id=12
Which is a 10 hour 4WD offroad trip up Maipo Canyon with Hislandes Aventuras. It sounds very fun and we'll see how it goes. We then have one day to explore Santiago itself. I've heard the barrios are quite fun but I'm wondering which one(s) anyone recommends to go hang around, eat, people watch, maybe go see an art gallery....we like interesting people, interesting architecture. We're not into discos and loud music but we're not 70 years old either....

Huentetu

This has excellent information on the neighbourhoods:
www.allsantiago.com
You probably want Bellavista or Barrio Brasil, but have a read through the different areas and see what appeals to you.

pep

Any hotel recommendations? Well located, some charm, easy to walk from?

Thanks for any help.