Cerro Santa Lucia ("Saint Lucy Hill" in English) is a small hill in downtown Santiago, Chile, and is also a park built on the hill.

The hill is a rocky, tear-drop shaped prominence, about 400 meters along its north/south axis, and 150 meters along its east/west axis, and is about 70 meters tall. As a rocky outcropping, it is the last outpost of a peninsula of sorts of hills, starting with Cerro Manquehue, a dozen kilometers away, leading to the long ridge of Cerro San Cristobal, and ending with this relatively small hill, directly in the middle of Santiago. Imagine a sea serpent, with the hills being coils rising out of the surrounding terrain, with Cerro Santa Lucia being the head just barely poking out of water. The hill is in the middle of Santiago, along Avenida Alameda, directly across from Universidad Catolica de Chile.

It has a relatively small size from the outside, but inside the park, there is a warren of attractions. These include the Japanese Gardens, the neoclassical Fountain of Neptune, the Hidalgo Castle, and the mirador at the top of the hills, which gives a good view of the central Santiago area. The different parts of the park were all built at different time, and some of the staircases are very rickety and steep: this is not an ADA compliant facility. The park can also be very crowded, especially on weekends.

Cerro Santa Lucia is quite a treat. I actually lived only four blocks from it for two years, and as is often the case, only visited it every few months.


Brevity Quest 2020

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