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The Valparaiso ascensores tour, lift by lift

Valparaiso Tour: Street Art, Funiculars & Port (6 pax)

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Quick summary

A Valparaiso ascensores tour rides the historic funiculars Concepción, El Peral and Reina Victoria into Cerro Alegre and Concepción, paying in cash at each station.

Fares and status

  • CLP 1,000 a ride for foreign visitors2
  • Many lifts take cash only71
  • Artillería listed as closed4

Two questions, one way up

Which funicular outing suits you

Say how you like to explore and how much of the coast you want, and an outing appears with its starting price.

1How do you want to ride the lifts?

A Valparaiso ascensores tour is a fine way to understand a city built on hills: little wooden cars, steep rails and a view that opens as you rise. Here is which lifts run, what they cost and how to link them.

Editorial team, valparaisotour.com · Updated November 11, 2026 · ~7 min read

Facts at a glance

  • Oldest in serviceConcepción, opened in 1883, climbs to Paseo Gervasoni.1
  • FareCLP 1,000 per ride for foreign visitors, says the tourism board.2
  • Protected16 lifts are Historic Monuments since 1998.3
  • Best trioConcepción, El Peral and Reina Victoria serve the tourist hills.
  • Closed for nowArtillería and Polanco, says the city's guide.4,5

Why a port city climbs by funicular

Valparaíso grew rich on shipping before anyone dug a canal across Panama, and that trade turned it into a great center of commerce in the 19th century.6 The flat strip by the water filled quickly, so people built their houses up the hills that ring the bay.7 Climbing those slopes every day on foot was hard work, and the answer the city found still runs on rails today.

Lift building began in 1880, as the port expanded at speed.8 At its peak the city had 31 of these inclined railways.9 Most lifts are a pair of small cars on a slope, one rising while the other falls, linked by a cable over a wheel in the machine room at the top.

They are not museum pieces kept for visitors. The tourism board stresses that the lifts are still part of the urban transport used daily by residents, which is why you share the car with shopping bags and school uniforms.10 An urban tour of Valparaiso by funicular therefore shows you the postcard view from the top and, at the same time, the working city that still needs a lift to get home.

Lift by lift

Where each funicular takes you

FunicularOpenedLower stationTop station
Concepción18831Calle PratPaseo Gervasoni19
El Peral190115Plaza de JusticiaPaseo Yugoslavo16
Reina Victoria190323Calle ElíasPaseo Dimalow27
Cordillera188612Calle SerranoPlazuela Eleuterio Ramírez32
San Agustín191333Calle SerranoCalle Canal34
Espíritu Santo191135Calle AldunateCalle Rudolph36
Barón190917Avenida EspañaAvenida Portales37

Opening years and stations from the municipal tourism guide; Artillería and Polanco are left out because the guide lists them as temporarily closed.4,5

The trio that serves Cerro Alegre and Concepción

Start with Concepción, the first lift to run in the city, opened on 1 December 1883.1 It first ran on steam with wooden cabins and now runs on electricity with metal cars.11 The ride is 69 m long at a slope of 43 degrees and takes 60 seconds, from Calle Prat up to Paseo Gervasoni.18,19 The municipal guide lists it from 07:00 to 21:30.20

El Peral came next door in 1901.15 Its 55 m ride runs at 48 degrees and takes 45 seconds, from Plaza de Justicia, beside Plaza Sotomayor, to Paseo Yugoslavo and the fine arts palace.21,16 The foreign merchant families who settled on Cerro Alegre used it heavily, and it is still a favourite first ride into the hills for visitors.22

Reina Victoria opened in 1903 and was named for the British queen who had died in 1901.23,24 Its cars once moved by counterweight, each with a water tank underneath that was filled to outweigh the other car.25 At 52 degrees it is the second steepest in the city, a 40 m ride from Calle Elías up to Paseo Dimalow and its wooden footbridge.26,27

Length of the ride

How far each lift travels

  • Mariposas177
  • Artillería175
  • Concepción69
  • Espíritu Santo66
  • Cordillera60
  • El Peral55
  • Reina Victoria40

Ride lengths in meters as the municipal tourism guide and the tourism board give them; Mariposas and Artillería are not running.28,29,18,30,31,21,26

Further afield: Cordillera, San Agustín, Espíritu Santo and Barón

West of Plaza Sotomayor, the Cordillera lift opened in 1886 as a steam lift and is the second oldest in the city.12 Fire destroyed the original, and the car you ride today is a replica built in 1894.13 It is a 60 m ride with a painted staircase beside it, so you can climb by rail and come back down on foot.31 Its lower station sits on Calle Serrano in the old port quarter.32

Close by on Cerro Cordillera, San Agustín opened in 1913 and is the only lift from which you cannot see the sea, because it climbs the side of a ravine.33,40 The tourism board routes walkers down it from Cerro Cordillera towards Mercado Puerto, a good finish for a morning in the port quarter.41 It feels more like a neighborhood shortcut than an attraction, which is exactly its charm.

On the other side of the center, Espíritu Santo opened on Cerro Bellavista in 1911, and its top exit leads straight to the Open Sky Museum of murals.35,36 Further east, Barón opened in 1909 and was the first lift with an electric motor, a German machine that still works.17 The tourism board puts Barón about 25 to 30 minutes by bus from the port quarter.42

Pick your ride

Pick a lift by the view you want

Street art

Reina Victoria

The steep one

  • Lower endCalle Elías
  • TopPaseo Dimalow
  • NearbyMurals and a footbridge
See the funicular walk

Museum

El Peral

The classic first ride

  • Lower endPlaza de Justicia
  • TopPaseo Yugoslavo
  • NearbyFine arts palace
See the funicular walk

The closed giants: Artillería, Polanco and the rest

Artillería was inaugurated on 29 December 1892 but only began running a year later, for lack of water to drive its machinery.14 Its 175 m ride is the second longest in the city, and its 80 m rise and 2 minutes of travel are the largest of any lift.29,73 The tourism board calls it the most panoramic of all, but the municipal guide lists it as temporarily closed.74,4

Polanco is the oddity of the network: it opened in 1916 and is the only lift that rises vertically, like a building elevator.75 You reach it through a tunnel 150 m long, and the top connects to the neighborhood by a bridge 48 m long.76,77 In 1976 it became the first lift declared a Historic Monument.78 The city's page also lists it as temporarily closed, so check before you plan around it.5

Several others wait for repairs. Mariposas, at 177 m the longest lift in the city, entered restoration in 2018 and is not running.28,79 Monjas stopped in 2009 for low profitability, a fire burned Lecheros in 2007, and Larraín stopped in 2010.80,81,82 Status changes as works finish, so treat any list of open lifts as a snapshot and ask at the station.

Ride with a guide

Price a funicular walk for your group

Compare guided walks that ride the lifts.

Compare 3 alternatives

Price a funicular walk for your group

Compare guided walks that ride the lifts.

2 people
  1. Street art and lifts2 hours · per person, from $46

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    View
  2. Lift and open sky gallery3 hours · per person, from $40

    ≈

    View
  3. Colorful hills walk2.5 hours · per person, from $23

    ≈

    View

All amounts are from-prices on GetYourGuide, converted at the ECB reference rate. Exact prices are shown at booking.

Rails up the hills

How the lift network grew

  1. 1883

    Concepción opens

    The first lift in the city starts running, on steam.1,11

  2. 1886

    Cordillera follows

    A steam lift for the port quarter, rebuilt after a fire.12,13

  3. 1892

    Artillería inaugurated

    Water shortages delay its first run by a year.14

  4. 1901

    El Peral climbs

    El Peral opens, climbing to Paseo Yugoslavo.15,16

  5. 1909

    Barón goes electric

    A German electric motor arrives, still working today.17

  6. 1998

    Protected together

    Sixteen lifts become Historic Monuments.3

Fares, cash and opening hours

The tourism board gives the fare for foreign visitors as CLP 1,000 per ride.2 The municipal page for the Concepción lift prints a price of CLP 300 and names no separate rate for visitors, so check the board at the station.20 Either way, a morning of rides costs very little next to anything else in the day.

Bring coins and small notes. The tourism board warns that many lifts do not take cards, and asks riders to follow the staff at each station and to carry cash for tickets.71,72 Pay at the small booth at the bottom or top, wait behind the gate, and let people with heavy shopping go first: for them this is the bus.

Hours are long. The municipal guide gives Reina Victoria and El Peral from 07:00 to 22:00, Espíritu Santo the same, and Barón from 07:00 to 22:00 every day.83,84,85,86 Early morning is the quietest time to ride, with soft light on the bay, while late afternoon brings queues at the famous lifts but a warm glow on the painted houses.

Video

Valparaíso funicular railway scenes

tassiebaz on YouTube · Video data is requested only when you tap play.

Valparaíso’s elevators are part of the urban transport system used daily by its inhabitants.
Sernatur, Chile Travel (official tourism site of Chile)10

Before you ride

Funicular checklist

In your pocket3

  • Coins and small notes: many lifts do not take cards71
  • CLP 1,000 a ride for foreign visitors2
  • Ride early for an empty car and soft light

At the station3

  • Follow the staff and wait behind the gate72
  • Let residents with heavy shopping board first
  • Look back at the bay as the car rises

Plan the order3

  • Up El Peral, across the hills, down Concepción
  • Check Artillería and Polanco before you go: listed closed4,5
  • Barón is a bus ride east of the port quarter42

A guided ride through the hills, or your own

For the history behind each station, a guided walk links the lifts with the streets between them. A well-reviewed street art and funicular walk lasts 2 hours, meets at the cannons on Muelle Prat and rides El Peral and Concepción on its way past Paseo Atkinson and the Piano stairs, from $46.

A tour of the hills of Valparaiso can also be the coast day from Santiago, where the climb is one part of a longer outing. That day lasts 10 hours with pickup and a guide in Spanish, English and Portuguese, from $39. It suits travelers who are based in the capital and want the lifts, the hills and Viña del Mar without planning buses.

On your own, the lifts are easy to string together. Ride El Peral up, cross Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción on foot, and come down by Concepción or Reina Victoria. You will cover the core of the heritage hills, see the main viewpoints and spend only a few coins, though you will miss the history a guide adds at each top station.

A protected network in a protected city

In 1998, 16 of the lifts were declared Historic Monuments together.3 Polanco already had that status from 1976, the first of them all.78 Several were bought and restored by public bodies in the following years, which is why some cars now look freshly painted and others still wait their turn.

The lifts are also part of the wider heritage story of the port, which UNESCO named a World Heritage Site in 2003.87 They were built in the same decades as the merchant houses on the hills, when British and German settlers arrived in large numbers, more than 20,000 at the port in the later decades of the 19th century.88

That is the real reason to ride them. A funicular here is the thread that ties the flat business district to the homes above it, and every top station opens onto a different neighborhood. Treat each ride as a doorway, step out, walk a few blocks and look back at the bay, and you will understand the city better than any single viewpoint can show you.

FAQ

Quick questions get quick answers.

Which funicular in Valparaíso is the oldest?
Concepción, from 1883.

The Concepción lift opened on 1 December 1883 and was the first to run in the city; it climbs from Calle Prat to Paseo Gervasoni.1

How much does a funicular ride cost?
CLP 1,000 for foreign visitors.

The tourism board gives CLP 1,000 per ride for foreign visitors; the municipal page for Concepción shows a price of CLP 300.2,20

Can I pay for the lifts by card?
Bring cash.

The tourism board warns that many funiculars do not accept cards, so carry coins and small notes.71

Is the Artillería lift running?
Listed as closed for now.

The municipal tourism guide marks Artillería as temporarily closed; check its status on the day before you plan the Paseo 21 de Mayo view around it.4

Which lift is best for street art?
Reina Victoria or Espíritu Santo.

Reina Victoria tops out at Paseo Dimalow among murals, and the Espíritu Santo exit leads to the Open Sky Museum on Cerro Bellavista.38,36

What time do the funiculars open?
From early morning.

The municipal guide lists El Peral and Reina Victoria from 07:00 to 22:00, and Concepción from 07:00 to 21:30.84,83,20

Why is one lift vertical?
Polanco rises like an elevator.

Opened in 1916, Polanco is the only lift with a vertical climb, reached through a tunnel 150 m long.75,76

Sources

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