This is one of those posts we meant to do awhile back, but never had the chance! So, take a step back in time with me to our right after Patagonia when we spent a few days exploring the town of Valparaiso, Chile. It’s a nice enough town with a port, some artists, a bunch of street art and lots of little winding streets going up and around the 7 hills making up the city. The things that really stood out making Valparaiso unique, though, were the funiculars!
A much faster way to get up and down the hills!
Riding the rails…vertically!
A funicular is essentially a cable car that runs on a track underneath rather than hanging from a cable. Valparaiso, being all hills, built about 15 of them back in the late 1800’s-early 1900’s to help folks get up and down the hills. Amazingly, six or so are still running today! Talk about your engineering marvels! I made sure that Anner went with me on every one. They only cost 100 or 300 pesos per ride, about 15-50 cents, and took less than half a minute. I loved them! Just a wonderful throwback to yesteryear.
Wonderful old turnstiles, still letting riders on and off just as smoothly as they did in 1916.
Wheel pulley raising and lowering the cars.
One of the classic cars – they each hold 6-10 people.
One of the oldest funiculars – no, we didn’t ride this one. Maybe it’ll be repaired someday?
I took videos of each ride and we strung some of them together in a video here. It’s a few minutes long, so feel free to skip around. In the last minute you can get a sense of the inside of the cars and some of the machinery running them, if that’s interesting to you. It sure was to us!
Those are cool!
And fun, too! Certainly WAY more fun than walking up the hills!
I’ve taken rides in a few of these over the years in my travels – I most remember Santorini and Nagasaki.
Santorini and Nagasaki…adding those to the “Funiculars Left To Ride” list!
The funicular looks a little rickety. Glad you made it safely.
They FELT a little rickety, but they worked smooth as can be! I’d definitely ride them again.
Pittsburg, PA has one too, for the same need to get up and down a steep hill.
Wow – who knew? We’ve just learned there’s one here near Cape Town, so we’ll have to find it!
Dubuque, IA has one! That should be next on your travel list 🙂
No way! I was there years ago with my dad on a minor-league-baseball tour. Can’t believe we missed it! Anner says she’s ready to hit Iowa on our year-long round-America tour. 🙂