Impressions of… Santiago

First glimpses of Santiago: a huge sprawling city encircled by Andes; an urban valley glinting beneath a hot, cloudless sky.

Santiago’s mountains are desert-coloured, dotted with dark bushes. Higher up and further away are abstract patches of snow; if you look closely through the dusty atmosphere, you can see the faint blue outline of the slopes leading up to them.

A green tunnel of trees shades each avenue, many bursting with vivid jacaranda flowers. Tables and chairs under restaurant awnings are filled with diners making the most of the summer sunshine. Despite the unstoppable stream of vehicles, Santiago maintains its natural, uncrowded feel.

Central Santiago’s most important buildings are in the Italian or French style: neoclassical columns and rounded arches in cool neutral stone, a perpetual reminder of Chile’s colonial history. Santiaguinos are connected to their city’s formation by streets named after key colonial governors and an enormous Italianate fountain and monument marking the very place where the city’s foundation document was signed.

Santiago – the sheer scale of it – is best seen from above. Boarding its famous cable car, you are swept to the peak of Cerro San Cristóbal from which you can appreciate the extent of the city, stretching to the bases of the mountains surrounding it. It is a mêlée of buildings, from blocks of flats to colonial monuments to tall glass-and-steel offices. The only area of Santiago which is physically and characteristically separate is evidently the poorer district, still vast but messier, less ordered, looking almost deliberately sectioned off.

Soaring further into the sky is Cenco Costanera, at 310m claiming the title of South America’s tallest building. Its 360-degree viewpoint is on the uppermost two floors – a plant-filled platform open to the sky, with floor-to-ceiling windows providing a spectacular view of Chile’s extensive capital. If you time your ascent for sunset, you can see Cerro San Cristóbal glowing deep yellow as the sun sets behind it, the colour of its rays deepened by the evening haze that settles over the city.