Puerto Varas is the best base in Chile's Lake District. Apart from the park excursions described above, several day trips are easy. The German-heritage village of Frutillar, half an hour north on the lake, has a fine open-air museum of nineteenth-century settler buildings and one of the best concert halls in South America — the Teatro del Lago, built on stilts over the water. Puerto Montt, half an hour south, is the regional capital and the main embarkation point for ferries to Chiloé and Patagonia. The fishing village of Angelmó on its outskirts has the best seafood market in the country.
The island of Chiloé, with its wooden churches and curanto, can be done as a long day trip but is better with at least one overnight. Cochamó valley, two hours southeast, is the Yosemite of Chilean Patagonia — granite walls, waterfalls, and serious trekking — and is the obvious overnight from Puerto Varas in good weather.
