La Serena - Gateway to Elqui valley

Chile's second-oldest city serves as the gateway to the mystical Elqui Valley, where desert wine and stargazing converge. The colonial architecture, nearby beaches, and clear skies make this an ideal base for exploring one of the world's most unusual wine regions.

What to do there

6 things to do

1. 1 Count the 30 Churches of Chile's Oldest Living Colonial City History · Free

   La Serena is the only city in Chile where the president himself ordered every building rebuilt in colonial style — in 1948, Gabriel González Videla, a native son, issued the Plan Serena decree. Architects tore down modern facades and replaced them with Spanish Colonial Revival. The regulations still apply. The result is 30+ churches, red-tiled roofs, and the largest protected 'zona tipica' in the entire country — and almost nobody outside Chile knows it exists.

   Where: Start at Plaza de Armas de La Serena (-29.9027, -71.2519), bounded by Los Carrera, Arturo Prat, Matta and Gregorio Cordovez streets. The Cathedral is on the north side — built 1844-1856 by French architect Jean Herbage, neoclassical, 60m long, black-and-white marble floors, declared a Chilean National Heritage Site in 1981.

   What: La Serena was completely burned to the ground in 1549 by a native uprising — every Spaniard killed. Then rebuilt the same year. Then rebuilt AGAIN in 1948 by presidential decree. The city has died and been reborn twice, and González Videla made sure it would never look modern. Walk south from the plaza along Cordovez Street — count the church towers. Nobody is sure if there are exactly 29 or 31 (the locals argue). You'll spot the Iglesia Santo Domingo, San Francisco, La Merced — each built on the ruins of something older.

   How: Free, self-guided, any time. The Cathedral interior is open Mon-Fri approximately 9am-12pm and 4pm-7pm; Saturdays 9am-12pm. Bring nothing — just walk and look up.

   Backup: If the Cathedral is closed, the exterior is equally dramatic, especially at golden hour when the stone turns amber. The Plaza itself is open 24/7.

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2. 2 Taste Chile's Papaya and the Forbidden Fish at La Recova Adventure · Price: low

   La Recova is the kind of market tourists walk through in 10 minutes and locals spend their mornings in. The top floor is the secret: a series of restaurant stalls where fishermen's wives cook what arrived that morning from Coquimbo Bay, poured over ice with a glass of chilled Elqui Sauvignon Blanc at 10am — perfectly normal here. The papaya sweets on the ground floor come from the valley's famous papaya orchards, a fruit so delicate it doesn't survive shipping to Europe. This is where you taste something genuinely impossible to eat anywhere else on Earth.

   Where: La Recova Municipal Market, Cienfuegos 563, La Serena — in the historical center, next to the stone Augustinian church. A 3-minute walk southeast from Plaza de Armas.

   What: Ground floor = artisanal crafts and food stalls. The real action is upstairs: a line of small restaurants serving ceviche de corvina (Chilean sea bass), paila marina (seafood broth), and papaya-based sweets including manjar blanco with nuts and goat cheese from the valley. Ask for 'papaya en almíbar' — papaya in syrup, the regional specialty that La Serena is famous for across Chile. It tastes like a pear had a fever dream in the desert.

   How: Hours Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 10:30am-6pm, Sun 10:10am-3pm. Upstairs restaurant lunch roughly 1,500-3,500 CLP per dish. No English required — point at what others are eating. Budget around 5,000-8,000 CLP total for a proper spread.

   Backup: If market is closed, the street outside on Cienfuegos has small bakeries and café windows selling empanadas and papaya products from roughly 8am.

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3. 3 Drink the Wine That Two Italians Grew in a Desert Wine · Price: low

   In 1998, two Italian cousins from Trentino — Aldo Olivier and winemaker Giorgio Flessati — drove 470km north of Santiago to the edge of the Atacama Desert and decided this was where the sleeping wine world was hiding. Falernia wasn't just a winery; it was a declaration that altitude and granite and desert sun could produce something nobody expected. Their Syrah, grown at 1,600m where the temperature swings 20°C between noon and midnight, has a smoky-floral spice that Rhône Valley Syrah doesn't touch. The tour is free. The wine will rearrange your understanding of what 'hot climate' means.

   Where: Viña Falernia, Route 41, El Tambo village (near Vicuña), Elqui Valley. Approximately 40km east of La Serena, follow Route 41 through the valley — the winery is signed at the junction to Gualliguaica, before you reach Vicuña town itself. GPS approximately -30.0300, -70.7500.

   What: Falernia's Reserva Syrah is the bottle to chase — born from granite soils at 1,600m where the Atacama desert begins. Flessati's other obsession is Pedro Ximénez: here it produces a tropical, honeyed white that has zero resemblance to the dark Spanish sherry grape. The winery also has an on-site observatory (ask to see it even if the tour doesn't include it).

   How: Open daily 10:00am-8:00pm (low season closes at 7pm). Short walking tours (~15 minutes) of the winery run regularly and are FREE with no reservation required for groups under 10 people. Tasting of 4 wines included. Wines available to purchase from the cellar door shop. Bus from La Serena's Unimarc at La Recova: Sol de Elqui line, every 20 minutes, ~3,000 CLP to Vicuña — the winery is visible from the road before you reach town.

   Backup: If Falernia is somehow closed (rare), continue 10km east to Vicuña town and visit the Capel cooperative winery just off the plaza — open to visitors and offers the full pisco-to-wine story.

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4. 4 Stand in the Birthplace of Latin America's Greatest Poet History · Price: low

   Gabriela Mistral was born in this valley in 1889. She stared at these same desert stars and wrote the poems that made her the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945. Sixty years after she died, the International Astronomical Union named the world's first Dark Sky Sanctuary after her — 36,000 hectares of valley officially called the 'Gabriela Mistral Dark Sky Sanctuary.' She is on the 500 CLP coin. She built schools across Chile. She is why this valley matters beyond the wine.

   Where: Museo Gabriela Mistral, Gabriela Mistral 759, Vicuña — right on the main street, one block east of the Plaza de Armas. Vicuña is 33km east of La Serena along Route 41. GPS: -30.0354, -70.7127.

   What: The museum holds her original manuscripts, photos, the Nobel Prize medal (replica), and personal letters. The most electric exhibit is the section on her childhood in Montegrande — a village even smaller than Vicuña, further up the valley — where she taught herself to write by reading the stars. In the courtyard is a plaque marking where she published her first poems in 'La Voz de Elqui' newspaper at age 15.

   How: Open Tue-Sun, approximately 10am-6pm (Mon closed). Admission around 1,000 CLP (free on Sundays for Chilean nationals; foreigners ~1,500 CLP — confirm at entrance). Signs in Spanish; ask museum staff for the English information sheet. Allow 45-60 minutes.

   Backup: If the museum is closed, the Plaza de Armas in Vicuña (officially named Plaza Gabriela Mistral) has a large bronze statue of her and explanatory plaques in both Spanish and English. Free, always open.

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5. 5 Watch Stars Through a Telescope Named for the Poet Who Loved Them Adventure · Price: low

   The Elqui Valley has more than 300 clear nights per year and sits at 1,100m+ elevation with zero light pollution. In 2015, the IAU declared this valley Earth's first International Dark Sky Sanctuary — named after Gabriela Mistral. Mamalluca Observatory was built specifically for non-scientists: the Municipality of Vicuña opened it in 1998 so that anyone could look through a 30cm telescope and see the Magellanic Clouds with their own eyes. You will see distant galaxies. Under the ink-black Atacama sky with a pisco sour in hand, the universe will feel genuinely close.

   Where: Observatorio Cerro Mamalluca, 9km northwest of Vicuña at 1,100m elevation. Reservations and ticket purchase are made at the Municipality of Vicuña office, corner of San Martín and Gabriela Mistral (the same street as the museum), GPS: -30.0354, -70.7127.

   What: 30cm Meade telescope with bilingual guides (Spanish/English) leading 2-hour sessions. You will observe nebulae, star clusters, the Magellanic Clouds (visible only from the Southern Hemisphere), and on good nights — distant galaxies. In summer you can see the Milky Way as a solid structure overhead, not a smudge.

   How: Tours begin at 20:30 in summer, 18:30 in winter (approximately October-March vs April-September). Cost: ~7,000 CLP ticket + 3,000 CLP for the minivan transfer from the Vicuña office to the observatory. Book in advance — popular with groups. Phone: +56-982599313. Pay at the office 30 minutes before tour starts. 2-hour experience.

   Backup: If Mamalluca is full, ask at the office about the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (one of the world's largest telescope complexes, open Saturday visits only — book weeks in advance at noirlab.edu). Alternatively, many hotels in Pisco Elqui village offer private stargazing sessions on their terraces.

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6. 6 Drink Pisco at the Distillery That Has Been Running Since 1868 Wine · Price: low · Optional

   While Chile and Peru have been diplomatically fighting over who invented pisco for more than a century, Fundo Los Nichos has been quietly making it the same way since 1868. The Atacama Desert sun shrivels the Muscat grapes. The ancient copper stills distill them once, then twice. The result is a pisco so clean and floral that it needs no mixer — though they'll hand you a pisco sour made on-site, under a trellis of vines, at 1,256m altitude, with the Andes turning purple in the last of the afternoon light.

   Where: Fundo Los Nichos, 3km south of Pisco Elqui village on the main road. Pisco Elqui itself is 107km east of La Serena — the end of the paved valley road. GPS of Pisco Elqui village: -30.1220, -70.4933. Los Nichos is a short walk or taxi ride south.

   What: One of the oldest artisanal pisco producers in Chile, family-run since 1868. Tours are in Spanish only — but the process speaks for itself: the Muscat vines you'll walk through, the copper pot stills, the oak barrels aging the spirit. If your Spanish is minimal, bring the phrase 'Quiero ver el proceso completo' (I want to see the full process). They will oblige.

   How: Bus from La Serena to Pisco Elqui: Sol de Elqui line from the Unimarc parking lot at La Recova, every 20 minutes, approximately 3,000 CLP, 2.5 hours. Last bus returns from Pisco Elqui at 20:00. Alternatively, Destilería Pisco Mistral (right in Pisco Elqui village, O'Higgins 746) runs bilingual tours hourly 12pm-5pm at CLP 6,000/person if Los Nichos is closed. Pisco Mistral includes a free tasting of 2 piscos.

   Backup: Pisco Mistral at O'Higgins 746, Pisco Elqui — open daily, bilingual tours, easiest access.

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Insider tips

• Stay in La Serena for beach proximity or in the valley for winery access

• The astronomical museums in town are excellent preparation for observatory visits

• Rent a car - public transport to the valley is limited