Puerto Montt
— where the road south becomes water.
Not only on a wall.
“A city on the Reloncaví Sound, founded by German settlers in 1853, where Chile's long road south meets the fjords. From the Angelmó harbour the ferries leave for Chiloé and the channels beyond. Volcán Calbuco stands above the bay, and the salmon boats come in at dusk. The Carretera Austral begins here, and the country's geography changes.
Puerto Montt, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Puerto Montt sits at the head of the Reloncaví Sound on the inner Pacific coast of southern Chile, in the Los Lagos Region. The city was founded on February 12, 1853 as part of a German agricultural settlement program led by Bernhard Eunom Philippi and Vicente Pérez Rosales. Its population is roughly 245,000, making it the regional capital and the largest city in Chilean Patagonia's north. The Carretera Austral, Chile's southern highway, begins on the city's southern edge. The volcanoes Calbuco (2,003 m) and Osorno (2,652 m) stand above the bay to the northeast.
The Reloncaví Sound is a tidal inland sea, the first of the Patagonian channels that thread south for some 1,500 kilometres into the fjordland. Tides here run two to three metres; the water reads pewter under cloud and lapis on the rare clear days. Angelmó, the city's working harbour and fish market, is the embarkation point for ferries to Chiloé Island, about twenty kilometres across the channel, and the multi-day Navimag passages south to Puerto Natales. Local fleets work salmon, mussels, and the cold-water shellfish that the market sells unboxed on its stone counters.
The city is reached by air through El Tepual airport, 16 kilometres west, with daily Santiago flights of about two hours. Most travellers stop one or two nights before continuing to Chiloé Island, the Lake District, or the Carretera Austral. Angelmó's fish market opens daily, and the seafood stalls and curanto restaurants are busiest from late morning. The Sound's climate is oceanic-temperate, with cool wet winters and sustained rain from May through August and milder dry summers from December through March. Cruise ships call between November and March, tendering passengers to the central pier.