Weekend in Lima
Here’s the itinerary for the lovely weekend I just spent in Lima!
If you only have time for one archeological site, go to the Huaca Pucllana in Miraflores.
Lima is all about culture.
It’s a giant, gray city with terrible traffic, but Lima makes up for that with an amazing culinary scene and fantastic art. The city’s 2,000+ years of history also goes a long way in distracting from the eternally gray skies with over a dozen world class museums plus historic sites and even pre-Inca archeological sites right in the city.
Lima top tip: Pick a neighborhood and stick to it.
On my last Lima trip, I stayed in the historic center but this time I stuck to the Barranco and Miraflores neighborhoods. Lima’s traffic is so awful that I suggest picking a neighborhood and focusing on just the restaurants, museums, and historic sites in that neighborhood. Lima has three restaurants rated in the 50 Best in the World and seven in the 50 Best in Latin America. If you can score a reservation at one of those restaurants, it’s worth planning a weekend around the restaurant’s location and your reservation time.
The rooftop bar at Hotel B has a beautiful ocean view - and I caught it on a rare sunny day!
I stayed at Hotel B in Barranco and at the Pullman Miraflores. They’re both wonderful hotels but couldn’t be more different.
I loved everything about Hotel B, a luxurious boutique hotel full of art in a historic 1914 Belle Epoque mansion. Fabulous and fascinating art fills the lobby, bar, patio, library, upstairs living room and reading nook, plus every hallway and room. My room had several beautiful paintings, and my favorite was an abstract that looked somewhat like the outline of Peru and somewhat like a woman’s body. Breakfast and teatime (lonche in Lima) are served in the library and both are equally decadent. Check out my Hotel B page to see more photos of the hotel and the rooms.
Pullman Miraflores is a large hotel with a beautiful rooftop pool and restaurant. I had a luxurious corner suite, with an ocean view out one side and a city view on the other. The room was a minimalist modern style, with gray curtains, carpet and furniture. The Pullman has a paired down version of lonche for those with executive lounge access. Breakfast was delicious but there were so many people that the noise and bustle was jarring after the peacefulness of Hotel B.
Here's how I spent my weekend
Friday
I had lunch with my friend Gaspar at Lima Wari in Barranco, followed by an afternoon cocktail class at Hotel B. Bartender Sergio Moreno taught me to make Peru’s classic pisco sour, then a cocktail with Amazonian gin, passionfruit juice, basil and cucumber, and finally a cocktail with 14 Inkas vodka, berries and grapefruit peel.
I had dinner off the All-Day Brunch menu at nearby Ancestral with my friend Charlie, who works with PromPeru (and creates great travel content), and then met my friend María Angelica (her IG has tons of Lima info, restaurants and Machu Picchu tips). We had drinks at the new and trendy Lady Bee in Miraflores, which I highly recommend. Actually, everywhere I went on Friday was fantastic and would recommend.
Saturday
I spent the morning enjoying Hotel B’s decadent breakfast and wandering the hotel to marvel at all the art. I also got to tour a few other rooms before people checked in and they were all beautiful. I had lunch with my friend Abi at Amankaya, which has some of the best seafood I’ve ever had and hands down the absolute best causa appetizers I’ve ever tasted. I went by Casa de Kanú to stock up on used books, since they have a much better selection than most bookshops in Cusco, and got to meet Kanú, the resident cat.
Next, I went to the Huaca Pucllana, a pre-Inca site built by the Lima culture about 1,500 years ago. At first, it just looks like a giant pyramid of adobe bricks, but the entrance ticket includes a guided tour where you see the remains of upright trunks that held up a roof, areas where offerings were left and where archeologists found burials, and even adobe walls that still have 1,500-year-old yellow paint. The bricks are spaced to allow Lima’s many earthquakes to rock but not destroy the pyramids and some are sideways to prevent the domino effect. The guide did a fantastic job explaining the Lima culture, which died out centuries before the Inca came on the scene. The experience was way more interesting than I thought it would be.
Sunday
I started the day at the Gold Museum with my friend Gian, which had a lot more than gold. It’s a private museum surrounded by gardens and lots of big trees, with a ridiculously extensive collection of military artifacts upstairs (like samurai swords and full suits of 16th century Spanish armor) and a giant vault of gold downstairs. Except for the door, it didn’t feel like being in a vault, just like a basement museum that doesn’t have great lighting. The gold collection is impressive and some of their most famous pieces are tumis, ceremonial Inca and pre-Inca knives usually used for sacrifices. After the museum I just had time for lunch at Lobo de Mar, one last ceviche, before I had to head to the airport.
Not gold, but I think this tiny needlework row of hummingbirds made by the Nazca about 2,000 years ago is more impressive. The colors didn’t fade from a few of the hummingbirds on the right side.
Lima safety & airport tips
Every time I go to Lima it seems like the crime rate has gone up and I’m increasingly careful, especially going to and from the airport. The safest, and honestly easiest, way to get to and from the Lima airport and the Miraflores neighborhood is the Airport Express, a bus that picks up at four locations in Miraflores. The bus has wifi, comfortable seats, luggage storage underneath, and is less than half the cost of a taxi. I used to take unofficial (unmarked) taxis from the airport and even walk around the area, but I don’t do that anymore.
If you are coming to Lima for the first time, it’s important to know that the neighborhood around the airport is one of the most dangerous places in all of Peru. There are desks for the Airport Express and for official taxis inside the airport, near the rental car desks. Get your transportation before you go outside because some “taxi drivers” outside are scammers looking to rob you. This is not the case in other places around Peru, especially places like Cusco and Arequipa. In Cusco I still take unofficial/unmarked taxis, even alone late at night, and have never felt unsafe doing so.
