Qualla: Ascensor Concepción https://qualla.com/ascensor-concepcion en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:39:57 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/h/ascensor-concepcion-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Ascensor Concepción https://qualla.com/ascensor-concepcion Ascensor Concepción: Introduction https://qualla.com/ascensor-concepcion/ Photo credit Stéphane Batigne, CC BY 3.0. In 1883 the citizens of Valparaíso found a way to cheat the hills. Their port city is built on a ring of steep slopes that tumble straight into the Pacific, and getting home meant a punishing climb up stairs and goat paths. So the Compañía de Ascensores Mecánicos installed a funicular: two little wooden cars, hauled up a 46-degree incline by nothing more clever than water and gravity. It was the first of its kind in the city, and more than 140 years later the Ascensor Concepción still runs - the oldest of the funiculars that became Valparaíso's signature.

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Image: Stéphane Batigne | CC BY 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/h/ascensor-concepcion-wp/66jh-ascensor-concepci-n-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ascensor Concepción: Water and Gravity https://qualla.com/ascensor-concepcion/ Photo credit Marcelo Ois Lagarde, CC BY-SA 3.0. The mechanism was elegantly simple. Two cars were linked by a cable over a wheel at the top of the slope, and a tank beneath the upper car was filled with water until its weight pulled it down, dragging the lower car up. At the bottom the water was emptied and the cycle began aga...

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Image: Marcelo Ois Lagarde | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/h/ascensor-concepcion-wp/66jh-ascensor-concepci-n-water-and-gravity.mp3 0:06 2 full Ascensor Concepción: The Climb https://qualla.com/ascensor-concepcion/ Photo credit Peretz Partensky from San Francisco, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. The lower station hides at the end of the Pasaje Elías, a narrow alley off Prat Street, tucked beneath the slender silhouette of the Reloj Turri, the wedge-shaped clock tower that is one of the port's best-loved landmarks. From there the little car tilts back and begins its short...

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Image: Peretz Partensky from San Francisco, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/h/ascensor-concepcion-wp/66jh-ascensor-concepci-n-the-climb.mp3 0:06 3 full Ascensor Concepción: The Hill the Foreigners Built https://qualla.com/ascensor-concepcion/ Photo credit P R, CC BY 2.0. The neighborhood at the top explains why the funicular was worth building. From around 1840, British and German merchants drawn by Valparaíso's booming sea trade settled Cerro Concepción and the neighboring Cerro Alegre, raising European-style houses, schools, and churches on the...

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Image: P R | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/h/ascensor-concepcion-wp/66jh-ascensor-concepci-n-the-hill-the-foreigners-built.mp3 0:06 4 full Ascensor Concepción: A Monument Restored https://qualla.com/ascensor-concepcion/ Photo credit Rodrigo.olivares, CC BY-SA 3.0. Valparaíso's funiculars are inseparable from the city's identity, and in 2003 UNESCO recognized the historic quarter of the seaport as a World Heritage Site, an acknowledgment of its remarkable late-nineteenth-century urban fabric of hills, alleys, and lifts. The Ascensor Concepc...

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Image: Rodrigo.olivares | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/h/ascensor-concepcion-wp/66jh-ascensor-concepci-n-a-monument-restored.mp3 0:06 5 full