On the Quest to see pingüinos

[Travel Guru]

Thanks for your kind words VPS, was a pleasure helping you organise it, so glad you trusted me enough to go with that option, I knew you'd love it!

 

[kookaburra75]

So never heard of champagne on a cruise, or never heard of not drinking it

The second part - not drinking it. It's like saying you use left over wine for cooking, as if such a thing exists

 

[Flying mermaid]

The second part - not drinking it. It's like saying you use left over wine for cooking, as if such a thing exists

Kinda agree - do like my bubbles. We have left over wine from cooking. I.e open a bottle, use 100ml in a recipe and then finish the bottle.

 

[VPS]

The second part - not drinking it. It's like saying you use left over wine for cooking, as if such a thing exists

I'm not sure that there is ever left over wine in my house but I just don't like champagne (was very ill once and I don't enjoy it but I drink lots of other alcohol to make up for it

 

[Travel Guru]

I'm not sure that there is ever left over wine in my house but I just don't like champagne (was very ill once and I don't enjoy it but I drink lots of other alcohol to make up for it

For the record the champagne onboard seabourn is very nice...and I didn't just drink one bottle, i sampled many to make sure the first wasn't a fluke

 

[VPS]

OK time to get back to this. Busy time of the year with the Adelaide fringe and work keeps getting in the way.

Day 2 at sea.

So there was a bit of trivia, a bit of sitting on the balcony, and maybe some coughtails and a nice sunset

 

[VPS]

If anyone knows how I reorder photos once I've uploaded them then I'd be grateful

Day 2 Puerto Montt

Because the cruise was booked by a Virtuoso rep I had a Virtuoso excursion included for today which was organised by Abercrombie and Kent.

Tender to port. Got on bus and drove to Frutillar and had a wonderful tour of the world’s southern most opera house.

Puerto Montt didn't seem very prosperous but Frutillar seemed a nice little town with some nice shops and obviously the music theme abounded because the bus stops had musical symbols on them

Some scenes on the drive to Frutillar

 

[VPS]

The opera house was just wonderful and I have fond memories of it now because the photo won me by Virgin Platinum gift from Matt_01

It has two foyers, one with all these hanging lights that are supposed to look like the floating lamps from the Great Hall in Harry Potter

 

[VPS]

There were lovely views out over the lake from many windows






This room was a creche for people who wanted to attend and didn't have anyone to look after their children and there were some free tickets allocated to people who couldn't afford to attend.

 

[VPS]

And the outside was magnificent as well.

 

[VPS]

Then drove for over an hour up into the hills to a Senda Nativa romahue which is a conservation park, where had a BBQ lunch and bread making demonstration

Lots of gum trees en route and very green and lush with some very fat contented looking cows.

 

[VPS]

We didn’t see any animals but had a great lunch. Pumpkin bread and Pisco sours then BBQ salmon, pork, lamb and beef with lots of salads followed by crème caramel. We then head back to the port and time to wander market but it was all tat. Back to ship and then sailed away. Really would have liked not to have spent so much time on the bus and wasn’t worth going up into hills and would have preferred staying in Fruitillar and having a wander around. We all got a gift of salt and pepper which I gave away.

Whenever we were in Chile we had to make sure that we carried the affidavit and they were very strict about not allowing any food off the ship.




Then of course there had to be a singalong



Always interested to know what petrol costs in other countries

 

[VPS]

Day 3 Chiloe Island and alarm set for 6am to be ready to be off the boat at 6.45 for the 7am tour of the wooden churches of Chiloe Island

Chiloe is South America’s second largest island and was visited by Charles Darwin in 1838. Chilote culture was heavily influenced by the Jesuit missionaries who arrived in 1608 and stayed for 160 years and they built chapels everywhere. The carving and the colours in the chapel were beautiful but one woman did complain because in some of them there wasn’t any stained glass and they were too plain!! As there are very little building materials except wood almost everything is wooden. The variation in the way they have done the wooden tiles is beautiful and fascinating.

There were also some beautiful houses on stilts and painted various bright colours.

The Port area where we got off the tender

 

[VPS]

The next church

 

[love_the_life]

Enjoying the TR VPS - will take more as you are able to write. Know you are busy.

 

[VPS]

Church 3 on Chiloe island

Wherever you went there were dogs everywhere

 

[VPS]

Church 4 which was in the centre of the town. We were supposed to have some time to wander around the square and the town but we just ran out of time.

 

[VPS]

We took too long to drive up into the hills to have a snack that was very ordinary at Fogón El Puticano. There were problems with the ferry and it took us ages to cross which added to lack of time to do others things.

The car ferry





The entertainment after lunch



Lunch included a pisco sour and four little appetisers (I only got 3 so I was robbed)

 

[VPS]

We went down by the sea and had a wander around a market and a small museum


More doggies

 

[VPS]

A few of the painted houses