11 Best Sights in Valdivia, The Lake District

Across the estuary from the Fuerte de Niebla is this large and well-preserved fort from 1645. In the January through February summer season, historic reenactments of Spanish military maneuvers take place daily at 4 and 6. To get there, you need to rent a small boat, which costs only about 1,000 pesos at the marina near Fuerte de Niebla.

Valdivia's imposing modern cathedral faces the west side of the central plaza. A small museum inside documents the evangelization of the region's indigenous peoples from the 16th through 19th centuries.

A walk south of downtown on Yungay and General Lagos takes you through a neighborhood of late-19th- and early-20th-century houses that were spared the ravages of the 1960 earthquake. One of these houses dates to 1870 and accommodates the Centro Cultural El Austral. It's worth the stop if you have an interest in period furnishings.

Valdivia has a long history of producing beer, and this brewery brews the country's beloved lager. The Anwandter family emigrated from Germany a century-and-a-half ago, bringing along their beer-making know-how. The cervecería (brewery), on the road to Niebla, hosts interesting guided tours by prior arrangement. There's also a small museum and a souvenir shop where you can buy the requisite caps, mugs, and T-shirts, plus a pricey restaurant serving German fare.

This awning-covered market in the southern shadow of the bridge leading to Isla Teja is a perfect place to soak up the atmosphere of a real fish market. Vendors set up early in the morning; you hear the thwack of fresh trout and the clatter of oyster shells as they're piled on the side of the market's boardwalk fronting the river. If the sights, sounds, and smells are too much for you, fruit and vegetable vendors line the other side of the walkway opposite the river.

To protect the all-important city of Valdivia, the Spanish constructed a series of strategic fortresses at Niebla, where the Valdivia and Tornagaleones rivers meet. Portions of the 1671 Fuerte de Niebla and its 18 cannons have been restored. The ground on which the cannons sit is unstable; you can view them from the ramparts above. The old commander's house serves as a small museum documenting the era's military history.

North and west of the Universidad Austral campus, this garden is awash with 1,000 species of flowers and plants native to Chile. It's a lovely place to wander among the alerce, cypress, and laurel trees whatever the season. If you can't make it to Conguillío National Park to see the monkey puzzle trees, this is the place to see them. It's particularly enjoyable in spring and summer.

Fondly known around town as the "MAC," this is one of Chile's foremost modern-art museums. The complex on Isla Teja was built on the site of the old Anwandter brewery destroyed in the 1960 earthquake. The minimalist interior, formerly the brewery's warehouses, contrasts sharply with a modern glass wall fronting the Río Valdivia, completed for Chile's bicentennial. The museum has no permanent collection; it's a rotating series of temporary exhibits by contemporary Chilean artists.

This museum is dedicated to the life and work of Rudolph Amandus Philippi, a 19th-century German-Chilean naturalist. The museum's collection explores the botanical studies of Philippi and is housed in the historic Schüller house, built in 1914. The exhibits include watercolors, drawings, photographs, and other objects that belonged to Philippi and tools, furniture, and other scientific objects from the 1800s.

For a historic overview of the region, visit this museum on neighboring Isla Teja. The collection focuses on the city's colonial period, during which time it was settled by the Spanish, burned by the Mapuche, and invaded by Dutch corsairs. Downstairs, rooms re-create the interior of the late-19th-century Anwandter mansion that belonged to one of Valdivia's first immigrant families; the upper floor delves into Mapuche art and culture.

Just south of the Centro Cultural El Austral lies one of two fortress towers constructed in 1774 to defend Valdivia from constant attacks by the Mapuche. Both towers—the other sits on Avenida Picarte between the bus terminal and the bridge entering the city over the Río Calle-Calle—were built in the style of those that guarded the coasts of Andalusia, in southern Spain. A wall and moat connected the two Valdivia towers in the colonial era, effectively turning the city into an island.