Things to do
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Avenida del Mar
A six kilometre seafront road running south from the lighthouse toward Coquimbo, backed by continuous beach and split into named sectors with their own access points. The Humboldt current keeps the water cold all summer and the rip is strong on the open stretches, so swimming is flagged only where lifeguards work.
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Catedral de La Serena
A stone cathedral of 1844 on the Plaza de Armas, designed by the French architect Juan Herbage in a restrained neoclassical line and finished with a bell tower a decade later. A small religious art museum occupies the side gallery, and the doors open through the day around the parish services.
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Faro Monumental
A square stone lighthouse of 1951 at the head of Avenida del Mar, built as a city emblem alongside the Plan Serena works and restored after storm damage. It marks the northern end of the beach walk, and the terrace around its base is the standard place to watch the surf come in.
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Iglesia de San Francisco
The oldest surviving church in the city, built in stone in the early seventeenth century with walls thick enough to have outlasted the pirate raids and the earthquakes that took the rest. The carved doorway is the piece to look at, and the interior keeps colonial images moved here from lost chapels.
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La Recova
The city market in a two storey building of arcades near the plaza, with produce and dried fruit below and craft stalls and papaya preserves on the upper gallery. Trade starts early and thins after lunch, and the Elqui valley pisco and dried papaya sold here are the local buy.
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Museo Arqueológico
The regional archaeology collection, reopened in 2021 after four years of rebuilding, with some 1,350 objects covering the Molle, Ánimas, Diaguita and Inca cultures of the Norte Chico. A moai given to the region by Rapa Nui stands in the courtyard, and the museum closes on Mondays.
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Parque nacional Bosque Fray Jorge
A patch of Valdivian rainforest stranded on a coastal ridge at 600 metres in the middle of semi desert, kept alive entirely by the camanchaca fog that rolls off the Pacific. A short boardwalk loops through the trees at the top, the access road is gravel, and the park keeps limited opening days.
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Reserva nacional Pingüino de Humboldt
Three islands off Punta de Choros holding a large Humboldt penguin colony, with resident bottlenose dolphins, sea otters and fur seals along the same channels. Boats leave from the beach at Punta de Choros in the morning before the wind gets up, and landings on Isla Damas are capped by CONAF and sometimes suspended.