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Things to do in Puerto Montt

Why you should go

Ninety seconds on Puerto Montt

The Panamerican highway gives out at the head of the Reloncaví sound and the archipelago begins. Puerto Montt is a working city of salmon farms and ferry terminals, the region's airport and bus hub, and no resort. German settlers founded it in 1853 and the 1960 earthquake took most of what they built, so little of that architecture survives. What holds a visitor is Angelmó, the alerce forest inland and the boats south to Chaitén and Puerto Natales.

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Things to do

6
  1. Catedral de Puerto Montt

    Cathedral · 30 min

    The cathedral of 1856, raised entirely in alerce timber to a neoclassical design and the oldest building left standing in the city after 1960. It faces the Plaza de Armas, keeps a coffered wooden ceiling and a plain white interior, and the doors are open through the day outside services.

  2. Feria Artesanal Angelmó

    Market · 2 hr

    The craft and fish market strung along the Angelmó waterfront, where wool, Chilote basketry and dried seaweed trade beside stalls cooking curanto and machas. Fishing boats unload at the caleta alongside, a footbridge crosses to the palafito kitchens over the water, and the cooking starts from late morning.

  3. Isla Tenglo

    Island · 3 hr

    A long green island lying across the harbour mouth, crossed by launch from Angelmó in a few minutes and climbed to a summit cross for the view over the sound. Smallholdings and curanto kitchens cover it, no bridge reaches it, and the last boats back run early in the evening.

  4. Monumento Natural Lahuen Ñadi

    Park · 2 hr

    A reserve of about two hundred hectares near the airport holding one of the last lowland alerce stands, on ground too waterlogged ever to have been cleared. A boardwalk loop of roughly an hour keeps walkers off the peat, CONAF staffs the gate, and the largest trees pass forty metres.

  5. Museo Histórico de Puerto Montt Juan Pablo II

    Museum · 1 hr

    A waterfront museum on Avenida Diego Portales covering German colonisation, Chilote material culture and the 1960 earthquake, named for the papal visit of 1987. The photographs of the city before the tsunami are the strongest part of it, and the hours shorten outside summer.

  6. Parque nacional Alerce Andino

    Park · 7 hr

    Close to forty thousand hectares of temperate rainforest east of the city, protecting alerce stands in which the oldest trees run past three thousand years. Trails start at the Correntoso and Chaica gates down gravel roads, the Laguna Sargazo walk takes about five hours return, and the ground stays wet all year.

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