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Things to do in Frutillar

Why you should go

Ninety seconds on Frutillar

Two towns share the name: an upper Frutillar on the highway and a lower one strung along the Llanquihue shore in painted German timber. Frutillar Bajo is the reason to stop: a lakefront avenue, a concert hall on stilts over the water and Osorno filling the horizon. The Semanas Musicales have run every late January and early February since 1968, and the Teatro del Lago programmes across the rest of the year. Thirty minutes from Puerto Varas by the lakeshore road, it is a half day for most visitors.

6 places on record
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Things to do

6
  1. Hotel Ayacara

    Hotel

    A restored colonial house on the lakefront avenue, its timbers brought up from the Chiloé coast, holding a handful of rooms above a sitting room of Chilote furniture and a wood stove. It faces the water directly, serves breakfast and nothing further, and fills during the Semanas Musicales.

  2. Iglesia Luterana

    Church · 30 min

    A shingled Lutheran church on the lakefront avenue, plain inside with a boarded ceiling and a gallery, kept by descendants of the colonists who took the land after 1856. It stands a short way along from the theatre, opens for Sunday services, and its dark timber and white trim set the pattern the avenue follows.

  3. Muelle de Frutillar

    Waterfront · 30 min

    A short wooden pier off the Philippi promenade, used more for the view across to the volcanoes than for boats, with the lake dropping away steeply beside it. It is two minutes from the theatre, and the light is best in the hour after dawn, before the wind puts chop across the reflection.

  4. Museo Colonial Alemán

    Museum · 2 hr

    The Universidad Austral rebuilt a settler farmstead on the slope above the lake: a smithy, a working water mill, a barn of implements and a furnished colonist's house in a terraced garden. The labels cover the 1850s colonisation of Llanquihue, and the site keeps shorter hours outside summer.

  5. Playa Frutillar

    Beach · 1.5 hr

    A dark sand beach directly below the lakefront avenue, shelving into water cold enough to keep swimming brief even in February. It is the best stretch in town for seeing Osorno and Calbuco together at first light, and the wind gets up across the lake most afternoons.

  6. Teatro del Lago

    Other · 2 hr

    A concert hall built out over Lago Llanquihue on piles, opened in 2010 with a main auditorium of about 1,180 seats and acoustics designed for the summer festival that had outgrown the old wooden theatre. It programmes year round, runs a music school, and the foyer terrace is open to walkers on the promenade.

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