Attractions

Many tour operators offer excursions in and around La Serena, including transportation to the observatories . Check with your hotel regarding quality as some get poor reviews, notably Talinay and Intimahina. For tours of the city and surroundings including vineyards and pisco tasting, nature preserves, and archaeological monuments, check with Ingservtur, Matta 611 (tel. 51/220165; www.ingservtur.cl), or O.V.I. Travel, Balmaceda 1126 (tel. 51/340541; www.ovitravel.cl). For more athletic activities including horseback riding, surfing, ocean kayaking, and mountain biking, contact Chilesafari, Matta 367 (tel. 51/225138; www.chilesafari.com -- you might need a little patience for the slow, heavy website). There's also the little Poisson surfing school (tel. 9/894-9128) right on the beach on Avenida del Mar.

Churches

La Serena's most recent urban renewal includes expensive, bilingual Spanish-English but ridiculously illegible glass historic markers on its main landmarks, including the most important of its 30-odd churches. Most, including the 1844-1856 cathedral, date back to the 19th-century silver mining boom. Three attractive stone colonial churches bear special mention; admission is free but opening hours are irregular.

Mannerist, late-16th-century San Francisco alone survived the destruction wreaked by English pirate Bartholomew Sharp in 1680, supported by meter-thick walls. The church and its adjacent monastic buildings stand at Eduardo de la Barra and Balmaceda.

Rebuilt in the mid-18th century in the wake of pirate Edward Davis's 1685 raid, Santo Domingo is located on a small square on Cordovez just off the main plaza. It boasts a simple, airy interior, a 16th-century baptismal font, and an attractive courtyard; an ill-fitting, neo-something bell tower was attached in the early 20th century.

Following a very similar model, San Agustín, across from the Recova market on Cienfuegos, was restored between 1985 and 1995 according to the original 17th-century plan.