| Just off the southeast corner of the
Plaza de Armas, at Merced 860, you’ll find the Casa Colorada,
built in 1769 and generally considered to be Santiago’s best-preserved
colonial house. The two-storey mansion with its clay-tiled roof, its row
of balconied windows giving onto the street and its distinctive, plum-red
walls certainly provides a striking example of an eighteenth-century town
residence. |
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| The house is built around
two large patios, one of which you walk through to get to the Museo de
Santiago (Tues-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-2pm; CH$500, free
on Sun) which occupies five of the Casa Colorada’s rooms. This rather
humble museum is dedicated to the history of the city from pre-Columbian
to modern times, which is illustrated mainly by scale models, maps and
paintings. None of it is very slick, and there’s no English commentary,
but each room has a detailed information panel in Spanish which, if
you’re able or can be bothered to plough through, provides an excellent
account of the various stages of Santiago’s development. |