Valparaiso: The city that embodies poetry

The streets of Valparaiso are poem and color. Pablo Neruda owned a house in this place, which is now a museum. Not even the poet could resist the charms of the city with colorful houses and elevators that seem to go to heaven.

For me it was a breath of fresh air.

Every writer/reader is inspired by the places their favorite artists have lived. These spaces are frequented by tourists seeking art in the unknown streets — a need as urgent as those seeking adventure.

These corners have magic and a life of their own that can be felt only by stepping on them. It’s no wonder they were points of inspiration for some of the greatest thinkers of humankind.

Poetry came into my life when I was a child and Neruda’s poems stayed with me through the years. While some would never the books they studied at school again, I stayed glued to them because they are the kind of beauty you find in places like Valparaiso.

La Sebastiana, a jewel of Chilean architecture, is one of the three houses the writer owned in Chile and his favorite place to welcome in the new year. It is logical; summer season reaches Chile in December and Valparaiso is one of the favorite spots for locals and tourists at this time of the year. The fireworks show at midnight is one of the best in the world.

Neruda’s house is located in a great spot to see the spectacle from the heights of the hill. The bay acts as a natural amphitheater, while the hills serve as a stage for the best possible scenery: the sea.

To get from the shore to the colorful houses on the more than 40 hills there are steep streets and elevators that resemble a small streetcar. The experience of going up among the vegetation and buildings, while the ocean appears on the horizon, cannot be missed by any tourist. It is at that moment, and when you reach the top, that you fall in love with Valparaiso.

The picturesque boxes or elevators also lead to viewpoints that become especially visited by tourists. But Neruda avoided these crowds and chose La Sebastiana in particular because of its location on Florida Hill.

Neruda commissioned some friends to find him the ideal place in the town to write:

“It cannot be too high or too low. It must be solitary, but not too much. Neighbors, hopefully invisible. They should not be seen or heard. Original, but not uncomfortable. Neither too big nor too small. Far from everything, but close to mobilization. Independent, but with commerce nearby. In addition, it has to be very cheap.”

These specific requirements do not seem easy to meet, but his friends found La Sebastiana, a place that today would not be easy to get in the real-estate market.

For the poet, La Sebastiana was not just a house. He turned it into a writing paradise and decorated it with old photographs of the port of Valparaíso and a large portrait of Walt Whitman. After three years of remodeling, the poet had his dream residence in the city.

It is difficult to know if the house already had this perfect energy for art and literature or if it was impregnated, like a perfume, after Neruda lived there. But it certainly now feels as that special kind of place where everything seems to be possible.

It is probably Valparaiso itself. It’s not just the house that breathes poetry, the whole city exudes it.

This place, which is a perfect seaside destination in the south of America, is the scene of the boldest colors in the facades of houses, a plain that easily connects you to Santiago and hills that give the feeling of living on top of the world.

When I traveled to Valparaiso, I walked the steep streets, rode the brightly colored elevators and breathed the salty air from the top of the mountain admiring the breathtaking views. When I contemplated the sea, I appreciated up close the power of the marine fauna.

But when I stepped into Neruda’s house, I understood what poetry is. Later, the whole city also became meaningful by becoming a large postcard that not only reflects a geographical point, but has a life of its own and, today, inhabits the writer’s books.

Images: Güldem Üstün, Luciajimena1990, Rodrigo Fernández and Mikel Santamaria