La Sebastiana

This was one of the places we really wanted to see in Valparaiso. When we were in Santiago about 5 years ago, we visited La Chascona, one of three houses owned by the famous Chilean Pablo Neruda, the first South American to win a Nobel Prize. The movie “Il Postino” was about Pablo Neruda and his exile in Italy, and some of his lovely poetry is quoted in the movie Patch Adams.

Valparaiso and Vina are both built on a very steeply sloping hillside that sweeps into the sea. I mention this because the roads leading up the hill to La Sebastiana were the steepest I have EVER seen. They were unbelievable. The poor little taxi groaned and chugged its way up and at each bend the hill became, incredibly, even steeper. I’m sure it couldn’t have been 45 degrees, but it felt like it was darn close to that.

Eugenio deposited it at the entry and went off to find a parking spot, then just waited for us in the shady garden.

We were each given a hand-held speaker that directed us through each room of the 5 storey house, describing what they contained. In the living room, for example, the table centerpiece was a large, hollow, white ceramic cow that probably held 1 ½ gallons of fluid. Neruda used this to serve punch to his guests. The living room itself had a circular floor on which stood an old carousel horse picked up somewhere on his travels. Every level had many large windows overlooking the hill spread out below and the beautiful jewel blue sea at its base. As befits a poet, he gave his favourite dark leather armchair by the window the fanciful name of The Cloud and used its comfort and the vista to inspire his writings.