Punta Arenas is a Navy Base and there is a torpedo boat as a monument set up near the naval station entrance.
Layne saw a fruit market do we pulled over. Rusty does not tolerate local dogs too well and doesn’t make friends easily.
In Latin the word “australis” means southern and consequently everything around here the southernmost which reminds me of Key West.
It was Saturday and we’d been told the ferry for Porvenir had no room for a 21 foot (6.3 meter) van. Oh well there was free street parking downtown on the weekend by way of compensation.
Look: The Austral Insurance Company of yesteryear.
We stopped for lunch at “La Cuisine,” a highly rated French restaurant. With southernmost beer available.
A shared French onion soup started our classic French meal.
Beef bourguignon for me with gratin potatoes:
Lamb shank for Layne:
We went all the way with crème brûlée and profiteroles and coffee.
It was quite the splurge.
The French immigrant owner has been here 12 years and turned us on to a French restaurant in Ushuaia owned by a friend of his. The immigrant story of Punta Arenas continues.
And we saw a story parked on the street as we walked downtown. It’s relatively easy to buy and title a car in Chile if you are a foreigner. Indeed there are brokers who help people buy and sell their vehicles. This one below has a Chilean license plate but the owner who has it kitted out for adventure travel has stuck a “D” for Germany on the back. Lots of travelers do this but use for a few months and sell if you would like a short less committed tour of all or part of South America. We never saw the owner of this one:
Punta Arenas and its glorious architecture.
The main square.
The Military Officers Club.
Our target was the Sara Braun building which is open to visitors.
It’s quite grand outside and in.
And we stumbled into a concert given by two professors from the Mudic Conservatory from the Magellanic University playing piano and violin.
We got to listen to an hour of Central European and Spanish 19th and 20th century music. Then we walked around the house.
Old fashioned central heating, a relic from my youth:
Ferdinand Magellan in the main square:
Made by hand but Layne bought nothing.
I like Punta Arenas.
Home sweet home.
