Puerto Varas

Puerto Varas dates from 1853 and is named after Antonio Varas, then Minister of the Interior. It grew out of a government colonisation project under President Manuel Montt: the Llanquihue Lake Colonization Territory was created on 27 June 1853, and by the end of that year the first 212 German families had arrived. They came from many parts of Germany, among them Hesse, Silesia, Westphalia, Saxony, Thuringia and Bavaria. The first settlement, known as La Fábrica, stood where the road from Puerto Montt and the coast reached the lake, and settlers were taken by small boat to the plots assigned to them, in what became the Puerto Chico sector.

Navigation on the lake had begun in 1852 with the cutter La Fundadora. A Catholic church opened near the present square in 1872, Sudeten German settlers from Braunau in Bohemia founded the village of Nueva Braunau in 1875, and the Deutscher Verein, or German Club, was founded in 1885. The settlement became an official town in 1897, and the commune in its present form dates from 1925. Houses were built of alerce wood with tools brought from Europe, and the Sacred Heart church followed in 1918.

In the 1950s the mayor Teobaldo Kuschel Kneer had rose bushes planted in the squares, parks, streets and front gardens, and the name City of Roses stuck. In 1992 a 13-hectare area of the western sector was declared a heritage zone. Over the following decades tourism became the town's main business, and in April 2025 passenger trains returned on a local line to Puerto Montt.

Puerto Varas is known above all for its German traditions. Many residents descend from the settlers, family names such as Kuschel, Raddatz and Jüpner are attached to the protected houses of the heritage zone, and the German Club dates from the 19th century. The architecture is the most visible legacy: steep roofs, timber walls and neo-Gothic details, with the Sacred Heart church on its hill as the landmark. The roses planted from the 1950s, which bloom in spring and summer, remain part of the town's identity, tended by residents and the municipality.

The calendar is full of festivals. Semana Puertovarina in February brings open-air concerts with well-known Chilean artists; Kuchen Tag, held since the late 1990s, celebrates the settlers' baking; the Rain Festival in June marks winter with an umbrella parade and races; and the Carnaval del Sur in early December fills public spaces with theatre and dance. In nearby Ensenada a festival around April celebrates the murta, a native berry.

The town has a small arts scene, with the Molino Machmar Art Centre, the Pablo Fierro Museum, a gallery and the Antonio Felmer Museum in Nueva Braunau. El Color del Sur, a national meeting of Chilean painters, holds open-air painting days and a collective exhibition here each summer, and a short way up the lake Frutillar holds its Musical Weeks in January and February.

The commune had about 53,000 inhabitants at the 2024 census, and it is large, stretching east beyond the lake to Ensenada, Petrohué and Peulla near the Argentine border. The town itself is the commune's capital and by far its largest settlement; official projections put the commune's growth between 2002 and 2012 at about a quarter.

Tourism drives the economy, with hotels, inns, a casino, restaurants and the agencies that run trips to the volcanoes, the national park and the lake crossing to Argentina. Puerto Montt, 20 km to the south, is the regional capital, and the two towns are closely linked; frequent minibuses and, since 2025, a local train make the link.

Schooling has a long German and Catholic tradition, dating from the settlers' first schools and the Catholic school founded in 1903 by sisters from Paderborn in Germany. Daily life follows the weather: long, wet winters are spent indoors, and in summer the lakefront, the beach and the festivals bring everyone outside, while visitors from Santiago and abroad fill the town.

Baking is the town's culinary signature. The German settlers brought kuchen, fruit tarts and cakes, and today they are sold with biscuits, chocolates, marzipan and home-made jams in the town's shops and cafés. Kuchen Tag, held each year since the late 1990s, draws hundreds of exhibitors with their own versions. Traditional German food — pork, sausages and cheeses — is easy to find in shops and restaurants.

Restaurants mix this heritage with the meats of southern Chile — beef, lamb, venison, wild boar and chicken — and with salmon, and the town has built a reputation as one of the most attractive places to eat in Chile, with traditional dishes served beside contemporary cooking. The Winter Gastronomic Festival in the main square at the end of July and start of August showcases local chefs and products.

Native ingredients have their place too: the murta, a small red native berry, is celebrated each year at a festival in Ensenada and appears in jams and tarts. Craft beer and local liqueurs are part of the food culture, and across the region the Chilean staples — empanadas, cazuela and pastel de choclo — are as common here as anywhere in the country.