Date visited 19 April 2024
Today's visit was to the Museo Maritimo Nacional, in Valparaiso, Chile.Valparaiso is about 1.5 hrs drive from the capital, Santiago, and there is a very good bus service between the two cities, so this museum is easily visitable as a day trip on public transport from Santiago.The museum is located on the top of a hill overlooking the naval base. The Museum building itself is a historic artifact - I think it might have been the fleet headquarters or something like that in the past. The view of the base would have made it a great place for taking photographs (there were six frigates in port today - plus a number of other vessels) - if only there hadn't been a container terminal between the base and the museum which cluttered the view (see photo below)The museum is really well presented, the galleries are well organised, captions aren't extensive - but they are generally bi-lingual. It has all the things you would expect to see in a national naval museum - photos, models, artefacts, guns, torpedos, mines, models, dioramas, etc. Out the front they have an armoured conning tower - not sure which ship it was from, but it looked like something you might see on a turn of the (last) century cruiser - along with two British-built 3-inch guns in superb condition.Not surprisingly there was a strong emphasis in the museum on the War of the Pacific, and the various actions the Chilean Navy was involved in in the late 19th Century - and lots of statues, paintings etc of their heroes Prat, Latorre & Cochrane. For the 20th century, there was a ginormous model of the Almirante Latorre (1915) - about 40ft long - but not that much more.The museum shop was quite small, but it sold good quality souvenirs, as well as a range of books on the Chilean Navy - none of which I had ever seen before - I ended up walking out with a superb two volume set on the History of the Chilean Navy - now all I have to do is learn Spanish so I can read it!Valparaiso isn't the handiest place in the world to get to - but if you ever have a day to spare in Santiago it is a worthwhile visit.
