Peru Guide
Lima
Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera
Opening time: Daily 9am–6pm
Price: $9
Address: Av Bolívar 1515
Telephone: 461312
Website: www.museolarco.org
One of the city's most unusual museums: the Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera, 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, from Trujillo, 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; and the erotic art museum, containing a wide selection of sexually themed pre-Inca artefacts, mainly from the explicit Mochica culture, which tend to attract the most interest.
From Lima Centro, you can get to the museum either by bus #23 from Avenida Abancay, by green microbus #37 from Avenida Nicolas de Pierola or on bus #41 from Avenida Emancipación or Plaza Dos de Mayo; however, it's much easier and quicker to take a taxi (about $4–5).