Papudo travel guide

Some 80 km north of Viña del Mar and just over 40 km north of Las Ventanas is the site of a naval battle in November 1865, in which the Chilean vessel Esmeralda captured the Spanish ship Covadonga during the War of Independence. Following the arrival of the railway, Papudo rivalled Viña del Mar as a fashionable resort but it has declined a great deal since its heyday in the 1920s. Among the buildings surviving from that period is the Casa Rawlings, now the Casa de la Cultura. There are two fine beaches, which are empty except in high summer.