Casa de Isla Negra, House museum and Chilean historical monument in El Quisco, Chile

Casa de Isla Negra is a house museum in El Quisco, Chile, built as a ship: low ceilings, narrow passages and steep stairs. Its two-story facade has dark blue horizontal wood siding, pale blue roof trim, exposed rafter ends and an upper balcony; a stone archway links the house to the right. Inside, rooms hold figureheads, maps, ships in bottles, seashells and whale teeth.

Pablo Neruda bought this stone cabin in 1938 from a Spanish sailor named Eladio Sobrino and expanded it over the following decades. The house was converted into a museum after his death in 1973 and preserves the personal collection and living space of the poet.

The name Isla Negra comes from the dark rocks off the coast, not from an island; Neruda renamed the spot, once called Las Gaviotas. The house holds his collections of figureheads, maps, ships in bottles, seashells and whale teeth, shown in the room called Bajo el mar. A café serves caldillo de congrio following his "Oda al Caldillo de Congrio".

The museum opens from Wednesday through Sunday, and a guided tour lasts about one hour. Visitors enter in groups with a guide who leads them through the rooms and explains details about the collections.

The graves of Pablo Neruda and his wife Matilde Urrutia lie on the property facing the sea. Visitors can see the simple stone markers standing just a few meters from the house on a small rise.