Valparaiso celebrates 50 years

"LandepNews"

Valparaiso celebrates 50 years of the house and museum of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda

September is, for Valparaiso, a month for celebrating. After all, it will be in this month of September 2011 that La Sebastiana, one of the three houses of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda turned into museums, will reach its 50th year of history.

The 50th anniversary of this house, in which the Nobel Prize of Literature Pablo Neruda once lived, will be celebrated with a concert of the group Los Jaivas in the Sotomayor square. The house will also be declared intangible heritage of the city of Valparaiso in this occasion.

Located in the Florida Hill, La Sebastiana is still nowadays a meeting point for the new generations of poets and writers in Chile. Since it is a well-known attraction for those who travel to Chile, and particularly in Valparaiso, the house will also display a thematic exhibition about its inauguration, which took place the 18th of September of 1961, during the Fiestas Patrias national Chilean holiday.

The scheduled activities start already on September 3rd, when plays for children will be shown in the Teather of the Museo del Títere y el Payaso (in English:Puppet and Clown Museum). There will also be round tables organized about the poet’s heritage in Valparaiso and his influence in the present, as well as workshops, poetry reading and music performances. All these activities will be free of charge, according to the information provided by the Pablo Neruda Foundation.

La Sebastiana is well known for its privileged view of the nearby hills and the bayside. The house has four floors and surprises the visitors with its narrow stairs and the unusual objects kept inside. These objects include embalmed birds, a portrait of the British sailor Thomas Cochrane, skylights from vessels and all sorts of maps.

The brilliant Chilean poet Pablo Neruda died in 1973 because of a prostate cancer. His legacy, nevertheless, is still available in La Sebastiana, as well as in two other locations. One of these locations is the Bellavista neighborhood in Santiago de Chile, where thousands of people annually visit La Chascona, another one of his houses. A third house is located in the nearby seaside resort of Isla Negra, a bit more than an hour from the capital.

If you are thinking of taking a trip to Chile, familiarize yourself with the works of Neruda before. His romantic poetry is well worth reading. If you find yourself doing tourism in Chile this September, do not forget to visit La Sebastiana and its 50th anniversary celebrations.

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