I am spending "almost" two days on an airline layover in Santiago for the first time this next week. I have gotten my guidebooks and have been checking out various information but wanted to know a few thoughts?

My girlfriend thinks that we should go on a wine tasting out of the city but I would rather stay in Santiago and explore the city. I really want to do the "on and off" bus along with seeing some of the artisan markets,etc. Your thoughts?

It might be my one and only time down there and I also was wondering if I should plan on not sleeping the first day of arrival and take a bus over to Valpariso to explore? Thanks!

So much to do, so little time! I would suggest (since your first day seems to be very short), seeing if your hotel can arrange an afternoon tour of the Concha y Toro vineyard the day you arrive, which is just outside Santiago. Email them and see if they can set it up.
The Turistik hop on/off bus goes the full round in about 2-2.5 hours if you don't get off. You get a good overview of the historic part of town and some of the suburbs. Depending on how often you get off it could also be a whole day activity.
A trip to Valparaíso really needs a full day.

Do you recommend trying to go to any of the artisan markets that I keep reading about in the guidebooks? I loved the ones that were in Buenos Aires a few years back. Thanks for your help!

The museum of precolombian art
( http://www.precolombino.cl/ )
is well worth a visit. Be sure to have a look at the cathedral in nearby Plaza de Armas. The Mercado Central is fun to wander through and find a good place for lunch.

It depends which markets you are talking about as some are a good deal better than others. It also depends on what sort of things you are looking for as the markets vary. The best quality items in the nicest setting would be in the Los Dominicos market in Las Condes. I don't know if you would find it worth your while to take the time to go there if you are only in town for one day. There is a market opposite the Santa Lucia hill which has a variety of things for sale.

The market Los Dominicos was the market I was interested in going to.Would you allow a couple hours including a lunch?The book made it seem nice since it was in an old monastery. Have you got a favorite spot to look for lapis or any other "rocks" from this area?

Would you spend the time and still do a wine tour? I saw that it takes about an hour and a half to hit Concha y toro each way. I have bad knees and the video on the internet made it seem like there was alot of walking? Unfortunately, I cannot do the tour the day of the evening I have to fly.
I do want to take a quick nap when we get in as I want to stay up for the USA election results that night.

If there is anything else that you could recommend I would be most appreciative as I usually don't fly South America so am madly trying to find info.Thanks for your time!

Los Dominicos is not really in an old monastery but beside an old church which once was part of a monastery and extensive lands on the outskirts of Santiago. In 1978 the Dominicans started to sell off a lot of the land and allowed some artesans to occupy what had been stables and storage sheds next to the church. The city grew all around it. there is anew metro station being built there too.You can get a pretty good idea of what it is like from the website:
www.pueblitolosdominicos.com
There is a lot of lapis jewelry for sale there. You can get the metro to the last station on line 1 "Escuela Militar" and a taxi from there. It is straight up Av. Apoquindo from the metro station.
If you have trouble with your knees you do not want to do Valparaiso. It is all up and down hills. Why not take the hop on/off bus as you originally planned? That way you only need to get off if you see something you are interested in. Los Dominicos won't get going until about 10 am so maybe you could do the bus before that.
The places where you can buy the bus ticket are on their website. There is one near your hotel (they may even sell them in the hotel so ask), on Isidora Goyenechea 2931 in the Mundo del Vino wine shop. Find out exactly where the stops are and you might find one a short taxi ride from Los Dominicos if you already have the tickets. Or email them and ask.
http://turistik.cl/en/index.htm
Do not try to use the metro at rush hour.

A few museums, a few art galleries. A ride out on the metro to the shopping mall at the end of the line. A morning or afternoon in Valparaiso (an hour away by bus. Bus station is near railway station).

Huentetu
How long of a walk would you say it is from the Radisson Plaza (which appears to be about 3 blocks from the corner of Av. El Bosque and Av Apoquindo) to this Los Dominicos market in Las Condes? If I get there is there a way to get a taxi back to the hotel?

Also, I am looking at this Turistik website and seeing prices like $15.000 pesos. Is that 15 pesos? That's like 2 american pennies. At first I thought that can't be right, and why are there 3 zeros to the right of the decimal point. Can someone clear this up for me?

Hi

Unfortunately, time, date, number and currency conventions are not standard worldwide. In Europe (and other parts of the world as well), 02/09/2008 would be the September 2, 2008 whereas in the US it would be February 9, 2008.

Similarly, whereas we use a decimal point as the radix - the symbol separating the whole number from it's fractional part - many countries in Europe and South America use a comma. In many of the countries that use a comma as a radix, the decimal point is then used to demark thousands

So seven and a half, which in the US would be written 7.5 would be written as 7,5 in many countries. Ten thousand would be written 10,000 in the US, but in many countries it would be written 10.000 (or 10 000) and similarly, ten million would be 10.000.000, not 10,000,000.

It appears that Chile follows the European numeric format, thus $ 15.000 pesos is fifteen thousand pesos, not fifteen.

My Hewlett Packard HP12C calculator has the ability to switch from US style notation to European notation - a capability I discovered when a random series of bumps and pressures in my soft-sided briefcase caused my calculator to switch over all on its own. LOL, it took me a couple of days to figure out how to switch it back and I found the reversed notation very disconcerting.

We will be spending a few days in Santiago pre-cruise in January, so we will be eager to hear your comments when you return

Have a great trip

You can walk to a metro tation from the hotel and then taxi from Escuela Militar station to Los Dominicos. It is too far to walk the whole way.

The Turistik fare is CHP$15,000, fifteen thousand pesos. As of today, divide by 676 to get the dollar amount.

There are usually taxis around Los Dominicos and you can pick one up to go to the Escuela Militar metro station or wherever else you want to go.