Four days in Lima: adobe pyramids between the apartment blocks

Three nights in one city, divided between the colonial centre, the clifftop districts of Miraflores and Barranco, and a morning at Pachacamac.

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Length
4 days, 3 nights
Where you stay
Lima
Places
9 across 4 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Most people arrive in Lima at two in the morning, sleep badly and leave for Cusco after breakfast. That is a shame, because Peru's capital has a claim to the best eating in South America, a colonial centre that survived four centuries of earthquakes, and adobe pyramids sitting between apartment blocks.

Four days is enough to see the centre properly, spend a morning at the coast, and take one trip out of town without ever feeling rushed. It also has a practical use: nothing here is above sea level, so a few days on the coast are days your body is not spending at 3,400 metres in Cusco.

Traffic is the constraint that shapes everything. Crossing Lima at the wrong hour can take an hour and a half, so each day here stays inside one part of the city rather than bouncing between them.

Highlights

  • The catacombs under Convento de San Francisco, with skeletons stacked in patterns in the crypt
  • Huaca Pucllana, a seven-storey adobe pyramid in the middle of Miraflores
  • Pachacamac, a pilgrimage city on the desert coast an hour south
  • Museo Larco, which lays out three thousand years of Peruvian history in one afternoon
  • Lunchtime ceviche, eaten when the fish came in rather than when you happen to be hungry

Where to stay

Lima

Francisco Pizarro founded Lima in 1535 and it ran Spanish South America for the next three hundred years, which is why the centre has more carved wooden balconies, cloisters and gilt altarpieces than a city of its age has any right to. Eleven million people live here now, spread across a coastal plain that has no natural water and no rain.

Three nights split the city sensibly: one day on the clifftop, one in the centre, one going south for the ruins and coming back through Barranco, and a last morning for the museum most people wish they had left more time for.

Day by day

Day 1 in Lima

Museo Amano and Huaca Pucllana

Long-haul flights land in Lima late at night or very early, so the first day is written around a slow start in Miraflores and a walk to the cliff edge whenever you surface.

Lunch is the meal that matters. Peruvian ceviche is cured for minutes rather than hours, so it is made with fish landed that morning and the good places stop serving it in the middle of the afternoon. Eating it at nine in the evening is a tourist habit, not a local one.

Then two things within a short taxi ride of each other: a small museum of pre-Columbian textiles, and a pyramid of hand-shaped mud bricks that has been standing in the middle of the neighbourhood since long before the Incas.

  1. 10:30

    Airport transfer to Miraflores

    Travel

    Forty minutes off-peak, well over an hour in traffic. Book the car inside the terminal.

  2. 13:00

    Ceviche lunch

    Eat

    Go at one, not at eight. Order the leche de tigre alongside it, which is the citrus and chilli marinade served as a glass on its own.

  3. 15:30

    Museo Amano

    Historic

    A small collection of Peruvian weaving, strongest on the Chancay culture of the central coast. Visits are guided and numbers are limited, so reserve a slot rather than turning up.

  4. 17:30

    Pucllana

    Visit

    Twenty-two metres of sun-dried brick built between roughly 200 and 700 AD, laid in a pattern that lets the whole thing flex in an earthquake. Guided tours run through the site, including evening ones, when the whole pyramid is floodlit.

With more time: The Malecon, the park strip along the cliff edge, runs for several kilometres above the sea and is at its best in the last hour of daylight, when the paragliders are still up. Walking south along it eventually gets you to Barranco.

Day 2 in Lima

The cathedral, Plaza Mayor and the crypt

The historic centre is compact and almost entirely walkable, which after a day of taxi rides is a relief. Start at the cathedral, because it opens early and fills up later.

The presidential palace takes up the north side of the main square, and the changing of its guard happens at 11:45 with a brass band and a good deal of high-stepping. It is watched from the square itself, so there is nothing to book and nothing to pay.

Save the afternoon for the crypt under the Franciscan church, which is the thing people remember about Lima. Bring a light layer: it is cool underground and the tour goes slowly.

  1. 09:30

    Catedral de Lima

    Religious

    Begun in 1535 and not finished until 1649, rebuilt more than once after earthquakes, and dedicated to St John the Evangelist. Pizarro's remains lie in a side chapel off the nave.

  2. 11:00

    Plaza Mayor

    Architecture

    The square Pizarro laid out, with the palace, the cathedral, the archbishop's residence and the city hall on its four sides. Stand near the palace railings before 11:40 for the guard.

  3. 12:30

    Lunch in the centre

    Eat

    The old chifas, the Peruvian Chinese restaurants brought by nineteenth century migrants, are a few streets east around Capon. Arroz chaufa and lomo saltado both come from that kitchen.

  4. 14:30

    Convento de San Francisco

    Religious

    The library of hand-bound folios is remarkable, but the catacombs are the reason to queue: an estimated twenty-five thousand people were buried here between the late sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the bones were later sorted and stacked by type.

With more time: Jiron de la Union, the pedestrian street running southwest off the square, is how the centre gets from one plaza to the other, and it is at its liveliest around six. The balconied colonial houses along the way can be looked at from outside for nothing.

Day 3 in Lima

Pachacamac, Barranco and the water park

An hour south of the city, where the suburbs finally stop, a whole sacred city stands on a dune above the Pacific. Pachacamac was a pilgrimage site for a thousand years before the Incas took it over and added their own temple to the sun; people walked here from across the Andes to ask questions of the oracle.

It is adobe, and adobe does not survive well, so much of the site is seen from a track rather than walked through. The site museum is the part that fills in what you are looking at, with textiles, ceramics and the knotted quipu cords the Inca administration ran on. Go in the morning, before the sun is overhead and while the sea is still under cloud.

Coming back north, stop in Barranco. It was a seaside resort for wealthy Limenos in the nineteenth century, and it kept the wooden houses, the painted facades and a wooden bridge over the ravine that everybody photographs. Finish in the centre after dark at the fountains.

  1. 08:00

    Drive south to Lurin

    Travel

    Around an hour from Miraflores on the Panamericana Sur. A taxi that waits is easier than working out the return.

  2. 09:15

    Pachacámac

    Historic

    Ramped pyramids, a painted temple and the Inca sun temple looking straight out to sea. Start in the museum, then take the loop road; there is very little shade out there.

  3. 13:30

    Lunch in Barranco

    Eat

    Anticuchos, the skewered beef heart grilled over charcoal, are the local street food and are better here than in Miraflores.

  4. 15:00

    Puente de los Suspiros

    Culture

    The Bridge of Sighs crosses the ravine that runs down to the sea, and the path underneath it drops to the boardwalk and the beach. Ten minutes of looking, an hour of wandering the streets around it.

  5. 18:30

    Parque de la Reserva

    Leisure

    Thirteen fountains, lit and set to music after dark, including one that throws water more than eighty metres up. The laser show at the Fuente de la Fantasia runs about half an hour. Go at sunset and stay for the lights.

With more time: If the drive south does not appeal, the same day works as a slow one in Barranco alone: the district is small enough to walk end to end, and the bars along Avenida Grau are where Lima goes on a Friday.

Day 4 in Lima

Museo Larco before the flight

One museum on the last morning, and the right one. Museo Larco occupies an eighteenth century mansion in Pueblo Libre that was built on top of a pre-Columbian pyramid, and its galleries run chronologically through three thousand years of coastal and Andean cultures.

Two things set it apart. The storeroom is open to visitors, so you walk through shelf after shelf of catalogued pots rather than seeing only the ones chosen for display. And the collection of Moche erotic ceramics is kept in a separate building at the end of the garden, which is either the reason you came or the bit you skip.

The garden restaurant is a good last lunch in Peru, and Pueblo Libre is on the right side of the city for the airport.

  1. 09:00

    Museo Larco

    Historic

    Open from nine, and quiet for the first hour. Two hours covers the chronological galleries, the gold and the storeroom without hurrying.

  2. 11:30

    Lunch in the museum garden

    Eat

    Tables under bougainvillea in the mansion courtyard. Book if you are flying the same afternoon, because it fills up.

  3. 13:30

    To Jorge Chavez

    Travel

    Thirty to fifty minutes from Pueblo Libre. Domestic departures want you there ninety minutes ahead, international three hours.

With more time: With a later flight, Pueblo Libre holds a second and much larger state archaeology museum a few streets away, and the neighbourhood's old taverns serve chicha morada and pisco to people who have been drinking there for decades.

Before you go

Getting in and getting around

Jorge Chavez International Airport is in Callao, northwest of both the historic centre and Miraflores, and it is the hub for domestic flights to Cusco, Arequipa, Iquitos and everywhere else in Peru. Take an official airport taxi or a ride-hailing car booked inside the terminal rather than accepting an offer in the arrivals hall.

The Lima Metro has one elevated line, and it runs a few kilometres east of the districts visitors actually use, so it will rarely be the answer. The Metropolitano busway is more useful: it runs its own lanes north to south and connects the centre with Miraflores and Barranco in a fraction of the time a taxi takes at rush hour.

Otherwise, ride-hailing apps are cheap by European standards and worth using between districts. Budget an hour for any crossing between 07:00 and 09:30 or between 17:30 and 20:00.

Where to sleep

Miraflores is the default: clifftop, walkable, full of restaurants, and a twenty minute drive from the centre outside rush hour. Barranco next door is smaller, older and better looking, with the bars and the live music, and it suits anybody who would rather not stay somewhere that feels like an airport hotel district.

Staying in the historic centre puts you inside the sights and saves two commutes, but the streets empty after dark and the food is weaker. If your trip is short and you want the churches first thing in the morning, it is a fair trade.

Weather, and the grey

Lima sits in a desert and gets less than three centimetres of rain in a year, which is why every green thing in the city is watered by hand. From December to February it is hot and bright and the ultraviolet index is extreme; a hat and shade matter more than sunscreen alone.

From about May to November the coast is under the garua, a low sea fog that greys the sky for weeks without producing rain. It is not miserable, but it is not the Peru of the photographs either. Nothing closes because of it, and the desert an hour inland is usually in sunshine.

Altitude, and what Lima is good for

Lima is at sea level. Cusco is at roughly 3,400 metres, Arequipa around 2,300, and Puno higher still, so a week in Peru usually means a hard altitude jump on one particular morning. Time in Lima does nothing to prepare you for that, which is a reason to plan the first day in the mountains as an easy one rather than a reason to skip the coast.

What Lima is good for is eating, and arriving. If you land at dawn after a long-haul flight, spending the first night here rather than connecting straight through to the highlands is the kinder option.

Staying safe

Violent crime against visitors is uncommon; opportunistic theft is not. Phones, cameras and bags go missing in crowds, on the Metropolitano and at traffic lights. Keep a low profile, carry a day's cash rather than a wallet, and book cars through an app instead of flagging one down.

The historic centre is fine by day and thins out sharply after around eight in the evening. Miraflores and Barranco stay busy later.

Lima rewards people who stop treating it as a connection. Four days here gets you a crypt, a pyramid, a pilgrimage city and several of the best lunches you will eat in South America, and it leaves you rested for the mountains.

Fly out to Cusco or Arequipa afterwards, and go slowly on the first day up there.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is four days too long for Lima?
No, though two days covers the centre and the cliffs if that is all you have. The fourth day is what buys you Pachacamac and a proper museum morning rather than a rushed choice between them.
Do I need to worry about altitude in Lima?
Not at all. Lima is at sea level. The altitude problem starts the moment you fly to Cusco, Juliaca or Arequipa, and days on the coast do not acclimatise you, so keep the first afternoon in the mountains gentle.
When is the weather best?
December to March is hot, dry and bright. From May to November a sea fog called the garua sits over the coast for weeks and the sky stays grey, which cools the sightseeing but flattens the photographs.
Is Lima safe to walk around?
In Miraflores, Barranco and the historic centre by day, yes, with the ordinary precautions against pickpockets. Book taxis through an app, keep your phone away in crowds, and do not walk the centre late at night.
Can I change the days around?
Yes, and the trip copies into a JourneyComposer plan where you can move a day, drop the trip south or add nights before flying on to Cusco.