Santiago's main attractions fall into two clusters. The historic centre, laid out in 1541, holds the Plaza de Armas, the Catedral Metropolitana, the Palacio de La Moneda and the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, all within walking distance of each other and of Plaza de Armas metro station. A few blocks east, Cerro Santa Lucía and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes on the edge of Parque Forestal make an easy afternoon. Across the Mapocho, Cerro San Cristóbal and Pablo Neruda's house, La Chascona, sit side by side in Bellavista, and the Sky Costanera observation deck in Providencia shows the whole city from 300 metres.
Plan the centre for a weekday morning, and check the date if you want to see the changing of the guard at La Moneda, which takes place every other day. The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes is free and closed on Mondays. For views, go up San Cristóbal or Sky Costanera after rain or wind, when the air is clearest. Allow a separate half-day for the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos by Quinta Normal metro station, which gives essential context for modern Chile.
10 places · Updated October 27, 2026
Our top 3 attractions in Santiago
Attraction
Santiago's largest public park covers the slopes of San Cristóbal hill, with a 1925 funicular, a cable car, gardens, pools and a giant Virgin statue at the top.
View details — Cerro San Cristóbal (Parque Metropolitano)Attraction
Chile's neoclassical presidential palace, built as the colonial mint and bombed in the 1973 coup, with a changing of the guard and a cultural centre beneath its southern square.
View details — Palacio de La MonedaAttraction
A museum of pre-Columbian art in the 1807 Royal Customs House, a block from the Plaza de Armas, covering some 10,000 years and around 100 American cultures.
View details — Museo Chileno de Arte PrecolombinoAttraction
Santiago's founding square, laid out in 1541, framed by the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Central Post Office, the National History Museum and the city hall.
View details — Plaza de ArmasAttraction
A small rocky hill in the city centre where Santiago's story began, turned into a park of terraces, fountains, stairways and viewpoints in the 1870s.
View details — Cerro Santa LucíaAttraction
Opened in 2010, this museum opposite Quinta Normal metro documents the human rights violations committed in Chile under the 1973 to 1990 military dictatorship.
View details — Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos HumanosAttraction
The neoclassical cathedral on the Plaza de Armas, begun in 1748 and completed in 1906, with three naves, a 1754 Jesuit organ and the crypt of Santiago's archbishops.
View details — Catedral Metropolitana de SantiagoAttraction
Pablo Neruda's Santiago house, begun in 1953 for Matilde Urrutia on the slopes of San Cristóbal, now a museum and the seat of the Pablo Neruda Foundation.
View details — La ChasconaAttraction
Chile's national fine art museum, free to enter, in a 1910 palace modelled on the Petit Palais in Paris, at the edge of Parque Forestal.
View details — Museo Nacional de Bellas ArtesAttraction
The observation deck on floors 61 and 62 of the Gran Torre Santiago, South America's tallest building, with 360-degree views at 300 metres.
View details — Sky Costanera