La Bolsa de Comercio

Valparaiso was home to South America's very first stock exchange. I blogged about it a while ago here.

From that first building, knocked down to reclaim more land for Plaza Sotomayor, it moved onto this one:

And then when this was knocked down to reclaim even more land, it moved to its current location on Calle Prat.

What Avenida Errazuriz Used To Look Like

Another Old Photo

Just to keep you interested in this exceptionally slow moving blog...

Looking up towards Cerros Alegre and Concepcion to the left and Cordillera to the right. The photo is from around 1875, I reckon.

Valparaiso Earthquake 1906: Some More Images

Calle Maipu down on the Plan:

And a panoramic view of the devastation taken from probably around Cerro Bellavista, judging by the curvature of the bay.

Click here to see more posts (below this one).

Plaza Sotomayor

Here's a photo of Plaza Sotomayor from the 1880s, looking towards where the big blue Naval building now is and also up to Lord Cochrane's house.

View Of The Port, From Cerro De La Concepcion

Photo from the around the late 1880s, when 'de la' still appeared in Cerro Concepcion's name. Click to enlarge.

Chile, The Land Of Charm

This great video was sent to me by a friend. It's a 1937 Travel Talks programme all about 'Chile, the land of charm'. It's fascinating to see Vina, Valpo and Santiago in film from so long ago.

Calle Condell Before and After The 1906 Earthquake

These pictures give a pretty good idea as to the level of destruction wrought by the 1906 earthquake in Valparaiso.

Before- around 1870-1880. Look how pretty and peaceful it looks; no micros.

After- 1906

The church tower you can see belonged to the Iglesia Espiritu Santo in Plaza Victoria. It survived the 1906 earthquake but not the mentally deficient town planners who decided to knock it down in the 1970s in order to build an apartment block so monumentally foul, one might conclude that the architect was a blind toddler who drew up the plans with a pencil between his toes.

Plaza Victoria

Valparaiso was so grand and pretty back in the day. It's still incredibly pretty, but in a run-down, nostalgic kind of way. A lot of people think that the city shouldn't be allowed to change, that it should be kept grotty, poor and downtrodden as that's where the city's 'soul' comes from. I disagree. Valparaiso was a clean, well-maintained, wealthy and culturally vibrant city in the past and aspiring to return to that is something that should be encouraged.

Don't listen to the hippies :)

Ascensor Polanco

I wrote about Cerro Polanco a little while ago. As I have no time at the moment to blog properly, here's a photo of how it used to look sometime in the early 1900s.

Plaza Sotomayor

You might want to have a look at this post I wrote a few months ago about Plaza Sotomayor. The building you see with the tower was originally built in 1833 and used as Customs' House. In 1856 it was taken over and used as the Intendencia before being knocked down and replaced, in 1910, by the French style palace that still stands today (which was also the Intendencia before the Navy kicked out the council in the 1970s).

As I've mentioned before, the new Plaza Sotomayor project was recently cancelled, indefinitely it would seem. The remodelled Plaza should have been finished a couple of months ago. Yes, really. Instead, the council decided it would be better to cancel the approved plans and undertake another study as to the feasibility of renovating Valpo's main square. Then, once the study is finished, they'll set up another competition to design the Plaza. My guess is that the work will start around 3050.

Valparaiso Antigua

I'm afraid I haven't had much to say recently so I'm just going to post another foto antigua de Valparaiso. This was taken sometime during the 1920s (1927 is handwritten on the front of the photo album).

Anyone fancy a guess at the location?

Valparaiso From The Water

This photo, from around the 1880s (just after Plaza Sotomayor was totalled to make room for the monument for the heroes of the War of the Pacific) shows how Valparaiso looked from the water way back when. If you look very closely, there's a white coloured house almost to the far left of the photo. That's my house. And this is the oldest image I've ever found of it.

Old Photo Friday

Looking down towards Plaza Sotomayor and Barrio Puerto, sometime during the mid-late 1800s.

Old Valparaiso (Again)

I'm really busy at the moment, which would explain my lack of blogging over the last month or so. Bear with me. In the meantime, here's another old photo of Valparaiso. It's actually quite hard to work out, but I'm pretty certain that the hill to the left of the photo is Cerro Alegre/Concepcion and the bluff in the middle of the photo is Lord Cochrane's house.

The photo is from the 1860s, before Plaza Sotomayor was created and more land from reclaimed from the sea.

Old Photo Friday

Avenida Brasil looking down towards Plaza Bellavista/Civica/Intendencia. The thin building in the middle of the photo is now where the Intendencia is situated in a truly hideous architectural kick in the knackers. Have a look here.

View from Cerro Artilleria, Old and New

It's now impossible to get this view from Cerro Artilleria- there's been quite a lot of construction since this photo was taken sometime, I'm guessing, in the 1860s or so.

If you look very closely (click on the image to enlarge), exactly half way up the very far edge of the right hand side, you can just about make out Lord Thomas Cochrane's house. A little bit in and you can see an unbuilt upon bluff (it's got a white line running down the middle of it). This is where the Palacio Barburriza was built and the hill which Ascensor Peral services...the only really flat part of Cerro Alegre-Paseo Yugoslavo. And just to the left of that is Cerro Concepcion. Or 'home' as I prefer to call it.

The best views I could find...mix the first two together to get the actual equivalent of the old photo.


The Palacio Baburriza

Plaza Sotomayor: Old

There's some more info about Plaza Sotomayor here.

This photo is from sometime during the mid to late 1800s.

More Old Photos of Valparaiso

You probably won't believe me, but I've actually been incredibly busy for the last week or so. This is new for me as I'm a work-shy layabout normally but when it comes down to it I guess I can work as hard as anyone. One day I hope to get paid.

Anyway, this is why I've not blogged for a while and also why this post is going to be nothing more interesting than a few more olde photos of Valparaiso. I hope to be back with something interesting to say at some point in the near future. Please don't hold your breath.

Plaza Sotomayor looking up towards Cerro Alegre


Looking up Calle Templeman and down Urriola, Cerro Alegre (photo taken from a house on Cerro Concepcion).


The intersection of Calles Prat and Cochrane used to look like this:

And now it looks like this:


Paseo Atkinson before the tosspots in the council allowed that hideous pink monstrosity (amongst others) to be built directly in front of it, obscuring the view and ruining the city back in the 60s.

Valparaiso Earthquake1906 III: The Dead

As I mentioned in the first post about the 1906 earthquake in Valparaiso (second post here), the death toll was around 3000 people. This number doesn't include the many people who died after the event in the days and weeks that followed. Many more died due to the fires that raged in the Almendral and also due to injuries caused by the earthquake.

Below are a few more images of the catastrophic nature of the quake and a list of the people who are known to have died during the actual earthquake.

Errazuriz y Edwards


Plazuela Bellavista


Fire on Avenida Brasil