Sunday, 22 May 2011

Iquique is in the North of Chile. City home to the duty free zone called "Zofri" and a growing number of high rise resort hotels along its beaches. Slightly more expensive and polluted than neighboring population centers, such as Arica, but a convenient place to stock up on duty free perfumes and laptop computers.





  • Baquedano Street is a cobbled, old-Western style street with plentiful tourist and artisan activities. Buildings around constructed during the 19th century offer interesting architecture mainly in Georgian and Victorian Styles adapted to the coastal desertic climate.

  • Historic sites can be found along the city and nearby the coast and desert, most of them related to the Pacific War against the coalition of PerĂº and Bolivia during the 19th century and with the the massacre by the government against miner workforce demanding social and economical rights, known as "the Santa Maria School massacre".
  • Iquique's 19th century architecture can be visited mainly downtown. Its origins are linked with the mining activities during that century, when European entrepreneurs became rich with the extraction of saltpetre and established their homes in the city. Many of them constructed big houses in different styles that predominated during the period and grouped in colonies with their respective buildings, with special stylistic, material and constructive adaptations to the climate of Iquique. The most emblematic house is The Astoreca Palace, that actually belongs to Arturo Prat University as an extension centre. Other important examples are The Spanish Casino, The Croatian Casino, The Chinese Club and The Municipal Theatre, one of the most important nationwide.

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