Viña del Mar, Museo Fonck (Easter Island Moai) & Concón Dunes Guide

Just eight kilometres northeast of Valparaíso along the curve of the Pacific bay, a scenic 12-to-15-minute ride on the EFE Tren Limache-Puerto from Estación Puerto to Estación Viña del Mar or Miramar, lies Viña del Mar, founded in 1874 by engineer José Francisco Vergara and universally known across Chile as La Ciudad Jardín (The Garden City). Where Valparaíso is vertical, gritty, and bohemian, Viña del Mar unfolds across palm-lined avenues, seaside castles, botanical parks, and wide sandy beaches leading north to the towering coastal dunes of Concón.

1. Essential Sights in Viña del Mar: Reloj de Flores, Castillo Wulff & Museo Fonck

• Reloj de Flores (Flower Clock, 1962): Located at the foot of Cerro Castillo opposite Caleta Abarca beach just five minutes' walk from Estación Miramar, this working clock with five-metre hands was acquired from the Swiss clockmaker Favag in Neuchâtel to welcome visitors to the 1962 FIFA World Cup (when Viña del Mar hosted Brazil's victorious group and knockout matches), planted year-round with over 8,000 fresh seasonal blooms.
• Castillo Wulff (Avenida La Marina 37, 1906): Following the coastal promenade north along the crashing surf brings you to a stone Germanic-French castle built directly onto the tide-washed granite rocks in 1906 by German philanthropist Gustavo Wulff Mowle (who added its circular turret and rock-spanning bridge in 1920). Today a free municipal art exhibition centre, its glass floor panel lets you look straight down into the Pacific waves surging beneath the bridge.
• Museo Fonck & the Original Rapa Nui Moai (Calle 4 Norte 784): Founded in 1937, the Francisco Fonck Museum of Archaeology and History is famous above all for the authentic 2.9-metre basalt Moai statue from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) standing freely in its front garden, one of the very few genuine monolithic Moai anywhere outside Easter Island, brought from Ahu One Makihi by the Chilean Navy in 1951. Inside, the museum houses an extraordinary collection of Rapa Nui rongorongo tablets, Mapuche silverwork, and pre-Columbian Andean ceramics; check the Museo Fonck website for current opening times.
• Quinta Vergara & Palacio Rioja (1907): Stroll the botanical gardens surrounding the 1910 Venetian-Gothic Palacio Vergara and the French neoclassical Palacio Rioja.

2. Reñaca & the Coastal Sand Dunes of Concón (Campo Dunar)

From Avenida Perú in Viña del Mar, hop on a coastal bus (lines 601, 602, or 303) or take a 15-minute Uber north past the sea-lion rocks of Cochoa (where hundreds of sea lions crowd the wave-swept granite boulders right below the coastal road) and the terraced beach of Reñaca to the Santuario de la Naturaleza Campo Dunar de la Punta de Concón. Formed over ancient Pleistocene marine cliffs thirty metres above the ocean, these 30 hectares of golden sand dunes are the most dramatic sunset viewpoint on the central Chilean coast, best paired with a stop in downtown Concón for freshly fried camarón-queso and macha empanadas.