Estación Mapocho

Today we went on a guided cycle tour of Santiago.  For anyone contemplating a visit to Santiago I can't recommend this highly enough.   Our guide was called Jose and he led us through the backstreets of the city,  stopping regularly to fill us in on the fascinating history of the city and the country as a whole.   What was so good was that he didn't just spout out what is in the guide books but gave us some insight into the violent politics that  tore the country apart and also the people that make up the population.   Each monument he showed us played some major part in the country's history.  Santiago isn't the prettiest city but it makes up for it with history.

General Pinochet disbanded the railways and the infrastructure has now largely disappeared.  As a result, amazingly, there is no railway system in Chile.   Due to its size and shape it would really benefit from a high speed north-south rail network but sadly that isn't happening.

Estación Mapocho is a former train station that since 1994 has been refitted as a cultural centre that hosts many kinds of events.  It reminds me of the Musée D'orsay in Paris and indeed was built by a French engineer.  He used state of the art anti-earthquake measures which means it still stands undamaged in the most seismically active country in the world.  

I loved the light and reflections in here and spent my time trying to get a solitary floor cleaner's silhouette in the shot (much to our guide's amusement)  Unfortunately he always moved off at the crucial moment.  This silhouette of two men on a bench was almost as good