Puerto Varas

Puerto Varas offers not only natural but architectural wonders that today declare the city’s heritage. At an urban level, what characterizes this city are the traces of the German colony that once commanded it. At the end of 1853, 212 German settlers arrived to populate the southern territory of Chile on an adventure into the unknown. Vicente Pérez Rosales, a Chilean businessman who became a politician and statesman, was the final founder of this process and that is why, in his honor, the Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park, one of the oldest in the country, is named after him. Since then, Puerto Varas has become a thriving economic and tourist city. In the City of Roses, at an architectural, level you will find at least 8 houses that are declared national monuments (Casa Angulo and Casa Gotschlich, among others) as well as important nightlife and a wide gastronomic selection where you can also experience cultural fusion and savor German-style Chilean dishes. Far away from the city you will be met by lakes and volcanoes, in particular Lake Llanquihue, whose banks sheltered the first settlers, the first to gaze at the ever-snowy tip of the Osorno volcano. You can visit the great island of Chiloe with its multicolored houses, from where Darwin witnessed the explosion of Osorno in 1835, which, although inactive for 125 years, the entire province continues to keep a close eye on. In the Vicente Lopez Rosales National Park, by crossing Lake Todos los Santos you reach the city of Peulla on the Argentine border, as well as coming across the Petrohué waterfalls that make their way through the rocks along paths made by the flow of ancient lava. For those who want to really get into nature, the Alerce Andino National Park has several shelters for camping and trails where you can see native fauna. And for those who want to delve deeper into the history of German immigration you will find the Colonial Museum of Octay in Puerto Octay where all kinds of historiographic and architectural appetites can be satisfied.

Where Germany surrendered, among lakes and volcanoes, to South American beauty.