Things to do
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Centro de Ski y Montaña Volcán Osorno
A small field on the volcano's southern flank with two chairlifts, running for skiing from about June to September and for lift served views the rest of the year. The access road climbs a long series of gravel switchbacks from Ensenada and is chained or closed after fresh snow.
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Hotel AWA
A design hotel on the Ensenada road facing Osorno across the water, with a two storey library, a heated lakeside pool and rooms that all look east to the volcano. It stands about twenty five minutes from Puerto Varas, keeps a small count of rooms, and runs its own guided excursions.
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Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús
Built between 1915 and 1918 on the rise above the waterfront, on plans copied from a pilgrimage church in the Black Forest and finished in Chilean larch. The scarlet roof and mustard towers are the town's signature, it carries national monument status, and the doors stay open through the day.
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Lake
Lago Llanquihue
A glacial lake of about 860 square kilometres, deep and cold, ringed by a road that links Puerto Varas, Frutillar, Puerto Octay and Ensenada. Black sand beaches sit on the eastern shore near Ensenada, and the afternoon wind that builds across the open water draws kitesurfers to the town front.
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Lake
Lago Todos los Santos
An emerald lake held between Osorno, Puntiagudo and Tronador with no road along its shores, reached only at Petrohué and at Peulla. The Cruce Andino catamaran crosses it as the first leg of the boat and bus route to Bariloche, running daily in summer and on a thinner schedule in winter.
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Museo Pablo Fierro
A house assembled from salvaged boards, doors and window frames on the waterfront, built by the painter Pablo Fierro as a museum of the German colonial south and of his own canvases. The hours are irregular, and the building itself is as much the exhibit as anything hung inside it.
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Parque nacional Vicente Pérez Rosales
Chile's oldest national park, declared in 1926, running from the Petrohué river east to the Argentine border past the Osorno and Puntiagudo cones. CONAF keeps sectors at Petrohué, Ensenada and La Picada, the paved road ends at the Petrohué boat ramp, and the Termas de Callao trail needs a river crossing arranged ahead.
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Saltos de Petrohué
Basalt chutes where the Petrohué river forces through an old Osorno lava flow in a run of green and white channels, with the cone standing directly behind. A boardwalk circuit takes half an hour, CONAF holds a ticket gate, and the water runs highest with the spring melt in November and December.
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Landmark
Volcán Calbuco
A blunt, heavily eroded volcano of 2,003 metres east of the town, which erupted with almost no warning in April 2015 and dropped ash as far as Bariloche. The route up leaves from Correntoso through the Llanquihue reserve, runs eight to ten hours return, and the upper section is loose scoria.
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Volcán Osorno
A near symmetrical cone of 2,652 metres above the lake, glaciated from about seventeen hundred metres and last in eruption in 1869. Chairlifts carry to 1,670 metres for the view over Llanquihue and Todos los Santos, and the summit is a roped glacier climb needing a guide and a full day.