Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral

Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

Entry is free and there is no ticket office. A small museum of sacred art occupies rooms off the cloister and charges a token sum. Guided tours of the cathedral are offered by volunteers at set times and cost nothing; private tours with transport, sold to cruise passengers and hotel guests, cost many times that and add little in a building this central. The cathedral stands on the north side of the Plaza de Armas, on the metro at Plaza de Armas, so no transport planning is needed.

Walking tours of the historic centre include it along with the former national congress and the Santo Domingo church. Nothing needs booking. The cathedral closes to visitors during mass, which is celebrated several times a day. The parish office beside the sacristy issues permits for anyone wanting to photograph seriously, and the cloister is opened on request.

Visiting Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral: what to see

This is the fifth cathedral on the site, which Pedro de Valdivia set aside for a church when he refounded Santiago in 1541; earthquakes destroyed the first four. The present building was begun in 1748 to a design by Joaquin Toesca, the Italian architect who gave Santiago most of its colonial public buildings, and finished in the nineteenth century, with Ignacio Cremonesi adding the neoclassical facade and the twin towers between 1898 and 1906.

Inside, the nave is long and bright, lined with side chapels and lit by a clerestory, in a plain Italianate manner that survived the 1985 earthquake with repairs. The silver altar in the Capilla del Sagrario, the pulpit and the carved choir stalls are the principal objects. In the crypt lie the archbishops of Santiago and the heart of Diego Portales, the minister who shaped the Chilean republic. A chapel of Our Lady of Carmel holds a Spanish colonial retable carved in the eighteenth century, and the sacristy keeps vestments embroidered in Lima.

Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from morning to evening with services through the day. The Plaza de Armas is the centre of Santiago and is busy at all hours, with chess players, preachers and photographers; demonstrations occasionally close the streets around it. Santiago's summer, from December to February, is hot and dry and the cathedral is cool inside. Winter brings smog that settles over the city and dulls the light. Dress is informal. Photography without flash is allowed.

Allow forty minutes. The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino is one block away and is the best museum in the country, and the Mercado Central for lunch is five minutes north. The Cerro Santa Lucia, a landscaped hill with terraces and fountains, is ten minutes east and gives the best view over the cathedral roofs. Independence celebrations in September bring a Te Deum in the cathedral attended by the president, and the square is closed for the day.