Things to do
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Castillo Wulff
A German merchant's house of 1906 built onto a rock over the sea at the mouth of the Marga Marga, extended in 1920 with a turret and a glass floor set above the water. The city owns it now and runs temporary exhibitions inside, it closes on Mondays, and the swell breaks under the walls.
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Dunas de Concón
A field of sand dunes standing above the sea near the mouth of the Aconcagua, declared a nature sanctuary in 1993 and pressed on three sides by apartment towers. A boardwalk crosses the protected ground, sandboarding is confined to the section outside it, and the wind gets up hard through the afternoon.
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Museo Fonck
The archaeological museum of the region, with Rapa Nui, Mapuche and Atacameño collections and a genuine moai standing in the front garden, one of the few anywhere off Easter Island. Upstairs turns to natural history, most labels are in Spanish, and the moai can be seen from the street without going in.
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Palacio Rioja
A 1907 mansion built for a Spanish banker on Quillota street, its ground floor left as the family kept it with the ballroom, the music room and the original furniture in place. It works as the municipal decorative arts museum, reopened after long repairs to earthquake damage, and closes on Mondays.
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Quinta Vergara
The Vergara family park, planted through the nineteenth century with species shipped in from overseas and centred on the Venetian Gothic Palacio Vergara, long closed for earthquake repairs. The amphitheatre in the grounds stages the Viña del Mar song festival each February, when the park shuts to ordinary visits for the week.
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Reloj de Flores
A working clock face planted in flowers on the slope above Caleta Abarca, installed for the 1962 World Cup and replanted by the city gardeners with the seasons. It marks the point where the coast road arrives from Valparaíso, and the first of the resort beaches lies directly below it.
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Reñaca
The resort district a few kilometres north of the centre, its apartment blocks stepped up a cliff above a beach running roughly a kilometre and a half. The surf is stronger and the water colder than in the sheltered bays to the south, and the coast road onward reaches the Concón dunes in minutes.