Picture Postcard Perfect

Tours4tips run ‘free’ tours in a number of places. They are predominantly walking tours (with an occasional bus thrown in) where you don’t pay to participate but are expected to tip. Given that I always tip tour guides means I do get a free tour. 

And thats what I did this morning. ‘Valpo Offbeat’ was a neat three hour tour with about 20 participants and a cool guide called Ignacio. Ignacio fed us with so much information about the city, politics, the people, history and led us round some amazing sites. 

Valpo is a little like Wellington with essentially a business district on the flat and ojj reclaimed land and then a residential area in a crescent shape built over 43 reasonably sized hills. Space is at a premium so they keep going further up the hills, many of them serviced by funicular or long tall stairways. Nowadays they have roads that connect the hills (by in filling the gaps between them). 

We mostly got around on foot but got to the top of one of the hills by bus; called the roller coaster bus for a good reason. Imagine Wellingtons windiest steep streets, double it, think narrow cobbled road and a rickety bus going at 80kph. No wonder we were told to hang on tight. 

But it was worth every minute. The views stupendous, the colours of the houses just glorious and oh! the street art mind-blowing and everywhere. 

Along with the general info Ignacio told us he also told us quite a bit about how tagging came about and how it now sits hand in hand with the street art.  The taggers want to be noticed thats why they pick extreme places to tag.  But also why they tag complimentary to stunning street art as they know people will stop to looks at the street art, so will therefore see their tags.  Street art around the area is often commissioned but almost always done to fit the location and lay of the land/site.  Fascinating and ever so glorious. 

As they say a picture paints a thousand words, so no need for me to say more. 

I’m looking forward to another Tour4Tips on a different route tomorrow. This afternoon I go cooking and for those that know me, they will know that I loath cooking classes that teach you to cook set recipes. This one sounds more like me as they focus on techniques as much as they do on following a recipe. Bring it on.