Faro Monumental

A squat castellated tower at the north end of Avenida del Mar, the most photographed building in La Serena. The Faro is decorative — it has never functioned as a real lighthouse — and it is the visual punctuation of the long beach promenade.

The tower itself can usually be visited inside; a short climb gets you a view down the length of the bay. The headland around it is good for a sundown walk and the pelicans on the rocks are large and tame.

things to do sight architecture
A story
The lighthouse was built in 1951 under President Gabriel González Videla, La Serena's most famous son, who used his term to reshape his birth city into the colonial-revival town he believed it should be. It has never worked as a navigation aid — its single light is too low to reach ships at sea.