Wooden churches and stilt houses on a misty island
Chiloé is a large island off the coast of southern Chile, long isolated and with its own traditions and myths. Its wooden churches, built by local carpenters from the Jesuit era onwards and covered in shingles, are a UNESCO World Heritage site; the yellow-and-purple church in Castro is the most striking. Castro also has palafitos, colourful houses on stilts over the water. Eat curanto, a seafood, meat and potato feast cooked in a pit, and visit the penguin colony at Puñihuil, where Humboldt and Magellanic penguins nest.