Lima keeps four centuries within reach: gilded viceregal salons off the Plaza Mayor, Moche portrait vessels in Pueblo Libre, and Barranco mansions turned into galleries. Evenings belong to the national theatre and the criollo peñas.
Peru's flagship art museum occupies the 1872 Palacio de la Exposición, an iron-framed pavilion set in Parque de la Exposición. The permanent floor runs 3,000 years, from Chancay textiles to Sabogal's indigenismo. Tue–Sun 10:00–19:00.
Built on Pizarro's 1535 land grant and held by seventeen generations of one family, this is the oldest continuously inhabited house in the Americas. Guided visits cross Sevillian tilework, a Moorish patio and gilded salons.
A 1906 beaux-arts mansion on Barranco's main avenue holding the finest private collection of viceregal painting and silver in Lima, plus a Sala Sur wing of pre-Columbian Tiwanaku and Cusco-school work. Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00.
Lima's contemporary art museum is a low white pavilion wrapped around a lawn in Barranco, showing Peruvian and Latin American work made since 1950 alongside rotating shows. Entry S/12, students S/6; Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00.
A 1700 mansion raised over a pre-Columbian pyramid, with 45,000 catalogued pieces: Moche portrait vessels, Chimú gold and a separate erotic-ceramics gallery. The open storeroom of 30,000 pots is rare. Daily 10:00–19:00.
In the Pueblo Libre quinta where San Martín and Bolívar both lodged, this state museum holds the Raimondi Stela and the Tello Obelisk from Chavín de Huántar — carved granite pillars from Peru's first great cult centre.
The central bank's museum fills a 1929 neoclassical banking hall on Jirón Lampa: a vault-level gold room of Vicús and Frías metalwork, and upstairs a strong Peruvian painting collection including Sabogal and Blas.
Peru's 1,400-seat national theatre in San Borja opened in 2012 and houses the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional, the Ballet Nacional and the national choir. Seasons run from zarzuela to Andean orchestral premieres.
The 19th-century blocks around Plaza Matriz in Callao's old port were reopened as an arts quarter: Casa Fugaz holds galleries and artist studios, and the surrounding facades carry large-scale murals by Peruvian painters.
Lima's Chinatown, settled by Cantonese labourers from the 1850s, runs off Jirón Ucayali beneath a paifang gate given by China in 1971. Chifa kitchens, herbalists and the Mercado Central's fruit aisles fill two blocks.
The 1912 Desamparados railway station behind the presidential palace is now a free literature museum: Mauméjean stained glass over the hall, permanent rooms on Vallejo, Arguedas and Vargas Llosa. Tue–Sun 10:00–19:00.
A Barranco peña staging criollo and Afro-Peruvian shows since the 1980s: cajón, zapateo and marinera danced close to the tables, with a live band rather than recorded backing. Cover runs about S/60 with dinner extra.