Valparaiso Shore Excursion: Street Art & Monotype Workshop

Your private guide and driver will meet you at the cruise terminal at San Antonio Port, holding a sign with your name.

We start our tour near the port and Sotomayor Square (Plaza Sotomayor), one of the main squares where Valparaiso’s layout is easy to understand: the flat downtown by the water and the steep hills rising above it. From here, we take one of Valparaíso’s historic funiculars up to Alegre or Concepción Hill.
Riding the funicular is part of the experience — this is how locals have moved between the plan (the flat part of the town) and the hills for generations, and it’s the simplest way to reach the viewpoints without burning all your energy on the first climb.
We follow a route that naturally links the main streets, passages, stairways, and lookout points. We will walk through Paseo Yugoslavo, overlooking the bay, and pass by Baburizza Palace, now a Fine Arts Museum. From there, we continue along Templeman Street to Paseo Dimalow and around Pasaje Galvez — areas celebrated for their murals and street art, but still feel like real neighborhoods with cafés, small galleries, local shops, and everyday life around you.
We include classic stops such as the Piano Stairs, and we also pause in less obvious spots where you can clearly see how the art changes — fresh paint over older pieces, fading colors, new tags, and new layers. That constant change is normal here, and it’s one of the reasons Valparaíso street art feels alive.

Next, we head up to Bellavista Hill to explore parts of the Open Sky Museum (Museo a Cielo Abierto). This mural project began as a university initiative in 1969 and later became an official public art circuit featuring around twenty large-scale works by well-known Chilean artists. The murals are spread across real residential streets, stairways, and retaining walls of the hill, so visiting feels like walking through a neighborhood rather than entering a formal museum. It’s a good contrast to the spontaneous street art on Alegre and Concepcion — here you see how organized mural projects became part of Valparaiso’s urban identity.

After exploring the hills, we stop at CasaPlan art cafe, a space dedicated to printmaking and contemporary art. It combines a working studio, an exhibition area, and a café, so it doesn’t feel like a “tourist restaurant stop”—it feels connected to the same creative world you’ve been seeing on the streets.

After lunch, you join a hands-on monotype workshop led by a local artist at CasaPlan.
Monotype is a printmaking method that works especially well for people who have never tried it before. Instead of drawing directly on paper, you create the image on a smooth plate — usually glass or acrylic — and then transfer it onto paper using pressure. The first print is usually bold and clear. If you press the plate again, you often get a softer second version, known as a “ghost print.” Each result is slightly different, and that unpredictability is part of the appeal.
In the workshop, you roll ink onto the plate and begin shaping the image by adding lines, clearing areas, and adjusting light and shadow. Nothing feels overly technical. When the paper is pressed and lifted, the image appears in one moment — and that reveal is often the most satisfying part. The focus isn’t on drawing perfectly, but on working with contrast, texture, and simple forms.
Many guests take inspiration from what they’ve seen during the walk: stairways, plants growing between houses, sea textures, fragments of façades, or the outline of the port and hills. By the end of the session, you leave with prints you made yourself — something personal that connects directly to your day in Valparaíso.

After the workshop, we continue with a private transfer to Santiago. (hotel or airport in Santiago)

Your private guide and driver will meet you at the cruise terminal at Valparaiso Port, holding a sign with your name.

We start our tour near the port and Sotomayor Square (Plaza Sotomayor), one of the main squares where Valparaiso’s layout is easy to understand: the flat downtown by the water and the steep hills rising above it. From here, we take one of Valparaíso’s historic funiculars up to Alegre or Concepción Hill.
Riding the funicular is part of the experience — this is how locals have moved between the plan (the flat part of the town) and the hills for generations, and it’s the simplest way to reach the viewpoints without burning all your energy on the first climb.
We follow a route that naturally links the main streets, passages, stairways, and lookout points. We will walk through Paseo Yugoslavo, overlooking the bay, and pass by Baburizza Palace, now a Fine Arts Museum. From there, we continue along Templeman Street to Paseo Dimalow and around Pasaje Galvez — areas celebrated for their murals and street art, but still feel like real neighborhoods with cafés, small galleries, local shops, and everyday life around you.
We include classic stops such as the Piano Stairs, and we also pause in less obvious spots where you can clearly see how the art changes — fresh paint over older pieces, fading colors, new tags, and new layers. That constant change is normal here, and it’s one of the reasons Valparaíso street art feels alive.

Next, we head up to Bellavista Hill to explore parts of the Open Sky Museum (Museo a Cielo Abierto). This mural project began as a university initiative in 1969 and later became an official public art circuit featuring around twenty large-scale works by well-known Chilean artists. The murals are spread across real residential streets, stairways, and retaining walls of the hill, so visiting feels like walking through a neighborhood rather than entering a formal museum. It’s a good contrast to the spontaneous street art on Alegre and Concepcion — here you see how organized mural projects became part of Valparaiso’s urban identity.

After exploring the hills, we stop at CasaPlan art cafe, a space dedicated to printmaking and contemporary art. It combines a working studio, an exhibition area, and a café, so it doesn’t feel like a “tourist restaurant stop”—it feels connected to the same creative world you’ve been seeing on the streets.

After lunch, you join a hands-on monotype workshop led by a local artist at CasaPlan.
Monotype is a printmaking method that works especially well for people who have never tried it before. Instead of drawing directly on paper, you create the image on a smooth plate — usually glass or acrylic — and then transfer it onto paper using pressure. The first print is usually bold and clear. If you press the plate again, you often get a softer second version, known as a “ghost print.” Each result is slightly different, and that unpredictability is part of the appeal.
In the workshop, you roll ink onto the plate and begin shaping the image by adding lines, clearing areas, and adjusting light and shadow. Nothing feels overly technical. When the paper is pressed and lifted, the image appears in one moment — and that reveal is often the most satisfying part. The focus isn’t on drawing perfectly, but on working with contrast, texture, and simple forms.
Many guests take inspiration from what they’ve seen during the walk: stairways, plants growing between houses, sea textures, fragments of façades, or the outline of the port and hills. By the end of the session, you leave with prints you made yourself — something personal that connects directly to your day in Valparaíso.

After the workshop, we continue with a private transfer to Santiago. (hotel or airport in Santiago)