Explore Lima and around
The old centre of Lima is surrounded by a number of sprawling suburbs, or distritos, which spread across the desert between the foothills of the Andes and the coast. Just south of Lima Centro lies the lively suburb of Miraflores, a slick, fast-moving and very ostentatious mini-metropolis, which has become Lima’s business and shopping zone. South of Miraflores begins the oceanside suburb of Barranco, one of the oldest and most attractive parts of Lima, above the steep sandy cliffs of the Costa Verde, hosting a small nightlife enclave. Sandwiched between Lima Centro and Miraflores is the plush suburb of San Isidro, boasting both the city’s main commercial and banking sector and a golf course surrounded by sky-scraping apartment buildings. West of here, Pueblo Libre is older, an established home to several good museums. To the east lies San Borja, a more recently constructed district with another fine museum, the Museo de la Nación. The city’s port area, Callao, is an atmospheric, if rather old and insalubrious zone tapering into the western peninsula of La Punta, with its air of slightly decayed grandeur. The suburb of La Victoria, on the other side of central Lima from Callao, contains some once-fine plazas and buildings, but is better known these days for its bus depots and pickpockets. Lima city’s sprawl means that there are massive urbanizations to the north, the south, and into the western foothills, where the upmarket suburb of Monterrico is found.
Most of Lima’s popular city beaches, like the surfers’ hangout of Playa Wakiki, are directly below the sea-facing cliffs of Miraflores, visible from the Larco Mar commercial complex and accessible on foot from Parque Kennedy.
- Huaca Pucllana
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Parque Kennedy
Parque Kennedy
Miraflores’ central area focuses on the attractive, almost triangular Parque Kennedy (or Miraflores Central Park) at the end of Avenida Arequipa. Neatly grassed and with some attractive flowerbeds, the park divides into four areas of activity: at the top end is the pedestrian junction where the shoeshiners hang out; further down there’s a small amphitheatre, which often has mime acts or music; next you come to a raised and walled, circular concrete area, which has a good craft and antiques market set up on stalls every evening; and just down from here is a small section of gardens and a children’s play area. Painters sell their artwork in and around the edges of the park, particularly on Sundays – some quite good, though it’s aimed at the tourist market. The streets around the park are lined with smart cafés and bars, and crowded with shoppers, flower-sellers and car-washers.
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Museo Arqueológico Larco Herrera
Museo Arqueológico Larco Herrera
The quiet backstreets of Pueblo Libre are home to one of Lima’s most unusual attractions, the Museo Arqueológico Larco Herrera, which contains hundreds of thousands of excellently preserved ceramics, many of them Chiclin or Mochica pottery from around Trujillo. The mansion itself is noteworthy as a stylish casa Trujillana, in the style of the northern city where this collection was originally kept. The museum houses the largest collection of Peruvian antiquities in the world and is divided into three sections: the main museum, which contains an incredible range of household and funerary ceramics; the warehouse museum, with shelf after shelf stacked with ceramics; and the erotic art museum, holding a wide selection of sexually themed pre-Inca artefacts – mainly from the explicit Mochica culture – which tends to attract the most interest.
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Fishermen’s Wharf
Fishermen’s Wharf
Down beside the pounding rollers lies the Costa Verde beach area, so named because of vegetation clinging to the steep sandy cliffs. A bumpy road follows the shore from an exclusive yacht club and the Chorrillos Fishermen’s Wharf northwest past both Barranco and Miraflores, almost to the suburb of Magdalena. The sea is cold here, but the surfers still brave it. The Fishermen’s Wharf (around S/1) is always an interesting place for a stroll, surrounded by pelicans and, early in the day, fishermen unloading their catch, which is delivered immediately to the neighbouring market. The outdoor restaurants here compete vigorously for customers; all of them are pretty good and, not surprisingly, have a reputation for serving the freshest ceviche in Lima.
