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⭐ Highlights

3 Days in Lima — Essential Highlights

The food capital of the Americas: ceviche invented here, three World's 50 Best restaurants simultaneously, Nikkei Japanese-Peruvian fusion and beef heart skewers from a 1970s pushcart vendor

📍 Lima, Peru 📅 3-day itinerary

Lima in 3 days: the city where ceviche was perfected (the leche de tigre lime cure, the ají amarillo, the choclo), where the World's No.1 restaurant organizes its menu by Andean altitude, and where the colonial monasteries have 70,000 bones in their basement catacombs.

Also explore Lima for:

📋 General guide ⭐ Highlights

Miraflores cliffs, Huaca Pucllana pre-Inca pyramid and ceviche at La Mar

10:00

🌊 Miraflores Malecón — 5km of clifftop promenade above the Pacific, paragliders at 80m

The most dramatic coastal urban walk in South America: the Parque del Amor Gaudí-inspired mosaic bench, the Larcomar mall cut into the cliff face, and parapente operators launching tourists above the Pacific.

⏱ 2 hrs 💶 Free

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13:00

🍋 La Mar Cebichería — Ceviche Clásico: corvina in leche de tigre (ají amarillo, lime, ginger), with choclo and cancha

The raw Pacific croaker cured in 3–5 minutes by fresh lime acid with Peruvian yellow chilli and ginger: the fish goes white, firms up, and is served with giant Andean corn kernels and roasted dried corn. The definitive ceviche.

⏱ 2 hrs 💶 S/. 50–120

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16:00

🏛️ Huaca Pucllana — the 1,500-year-old pyramid in the middle of a Miraflores residential neighborhood

The Lima Culture (200–700 AD) platform mound with the "handcrafted books" bookshelf brick technique (for earthquake flexibility): the priests' mummies and apartment towers directly behind the ancient site.

⏱ 1.5 hrs 💶 S/. 15

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20:00

🍹 Central (World's No.1, 2023) — altitude-organized tasting menu from sea to Andes at 4,200m in 12 courses

Virgilio Martínez's menu: each course at a different Peruvian altitude, using only indigenous ingredients from that ecosystem. The ocean course, the 3,000m Andes course, the 4,200m high-puna course and the Amazon course.

⏱ 3 hrs 💶 S/. 650–900

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Plaza Mayor (Pizarro's Lima, 1535), the bone catacombs of San Francisco and the Larco Museum gold

09:30

🏛️ Plaza Mayor — Pizarro's tomb in the Cathedral and the Lima wooden balcony (balcón limeño) tradition

The 1535 City of Kings: Pizarro's DNA-verified tomb (the other set of bones was finally ruled out in 1992), the Government Palace changing of the guard and the Moorish-inspired carved wooden balconies of the Archbishop's Palace.

⏱ 2 hrs 💶 Free

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12:00

⛪ Monastery of San Francisco — 12,500 Sevillano azulejo tiles and 70,000 bones arranged in the catacombs

The 1672 Baroque complex: the geometric tile cloister (Arabic-influenced, shipped from Seville), the carved Moorish wood ceilings and the underground ossuary where skulls, arm bones and leg bones fill separate chambers.

⏱ 2 hrs 💶 S/. 20

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15:00

🏺 Larco Museum — 45,000 pre-Columbian objects, the Chimú gold and the famous erotic ceramics gallery

The finest private pre-Columbian collection: the Moche erotic ceramics (now properly contextualized in the cuarto erótico), the Chimú gold, and the visible storerooms with thousands of classified ceramic vessels showing the full scale of Peruvian pre-history.

⏱ 2.5 hrs 💶 S/. 45

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Pachacamac oracle ruins, Maido Nikkei tasting menu and anticuchos at Tía Grimanesa

09:00

🏛️ Pachacamac — the oracle god's sanctuary used by four successive civilizations, 31km south of Lima

The Lima Culture (200 AD), Wari, Ichma and Inca all built on the same oracle hill above the Pacific: the Inca incorporated it rather than destroying it, making it the only major pre-Inca shrine that survived the Inca conquest intact.

⏱ 4 hrs + travel 💶 S/. 30

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14:00

🍣 Maido — Nikkei tasting menu: ceviche tiradito with yuzu-ají amarillo, Amazon roll and choclo in miso

Mitsuharu Tsumura's Japanese-Peruvian dialogue: the tiradito (sashimi-cut fish in a Japanese-Peruvian leche de tigre), the Amazonian ingredients in Japanese technique. Consistently in the World's 50 Best.

⏱ 3 hrs 💶 S/. 380–550

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20:00

🍢 Tía Grimanesa anticuchos — beef heart in ají panca marinade, grilled over charcoal, with papa sancochada

Grimanesa Vargas started on a pushcart in the 1970s: the marinated heart skewer charred outside and pink inside, served with boiled potato and the fresh sliced-onion salsa criolla. Queue by 7pm.

⏱ 2 hrs 💶 S/. 30–60

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📍 Route map

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

📋 General 3-day guide ⭐ Highlights

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📍 Miraflores — on the clifftop above the Pacific Ocean, the finest hotel location in Lima

Belmond Miraflores Park (Malecón de la Reserva 1035, Miraflores — the clifftop hotel directly above the Pacific: the rooftop pool terrace with the ocean panorama, the El Pacifico restaurant with the Miraflores skyline, and the best location in Lima for the Malecón clifftop walk and the Larcomar restaurants below.

From €320/night

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Language	Spanish (Peruvian Spanish — the South American Spanish with some of the clearest pronunciation in the continent, generally considered among the most easily understood Spanish dialects for language learners). Quechua (the indigenous language of the Inca Empire, still spoken by 3–4 million Peruvians, primarily in the Andes — the Quechua words for common concepts (llama, condor, puma, quinoa, vicuña, alpaca, choclo) entered English via Spanish). In Lima: almost entirely Spanish, with English widely spoken in Miraflores and Barranco tourist areas
Currency	Peruvian Sol (S/.). €1 ≈ S/. 4.10–4.30. Lima is moderately affordable (cheaper than Buenos Aires for food and accommodation, more expensive than Bogotá or Quito). Cards accepted at mid-range and upscale restaurants and hotels. Cash essential for anticucho carts, markets and taxis. ATMs at BCP, BBVA, Scotiabank. Withdraw in soles (not dollars) for best rates
Transport	Lima does not have a metro (the single metro line serves the southern suburbs and is not useful for the tourist areas). The main options: Metropolitano (the BRT bus rapid transit system on the Paseo de la República — the fastest connection between Miraflores and the Centro Histórico, S/. 2.50 single with a card). Uber: essential for longer trips (very affordable — Miraflores to Centro Histórico S/. 15–25). Taxi apps (InDriver, Cabify) also reliable. Walking: Miraflores and Barranco are walkable between themselves (30 min on the Malecón cliff walk)
Best time	January–March (the garúa (the Lima coastal fog) lifts and the sun appears: 24–28°C, the genuine Lima summer (Lima has an unusual coastal desert climate where the cold Humboldt Current keeps the coast cloudy and cool for most of the year)). June–November: the garúa season (the permanent low cloud cover at 300–500m — the sky above Lima is grey for 6+ months, temperatures 14–18°C. This is when the cloud lifts over the Andes and the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu are at their best). The World's 50 Best Restaurants ceremony comes to Lima every few years — check for dates
Getting in	Jorge Chávez International Airport (LIM, 13km northwest of Miraflores): taxi to Miraflores 30–45 min (S/. 60–80, use official taxi stand or Uber). No metro connection. Direct flights from Amsterdam (18 hrs via Bogotá or Panamá), London (17 hrs via Bogotá), Madrid (12 hrs, Iberia direct), New York (8.5 hrs), Miami (5 hrs)
Tipping	10% at restaurants (service charge is rarely included in Lima — unlike in other capitals). Taxi: no tip. Anticucho and market vendors: no tip. Hotel: S/. 10–20 per bag. Tour guide: S/. 50–100 for a half-day. Lima tipping is becoming more established in upscale restaurants
Safety	Lima requires precautions beyond Western Europe or North American cities. Miraflores, Barranco and San Isidro are safe for tourists with normal urban awareness. The Centro Histórico is safe in daylight, less so at night (use Uber, not walking, after dark). Do not use your phone on the street in any Lima neighborhood. Avoid the districts around the bus terminals (Fiori, Victoria) which are the riskiest. All the sites in this guide are in the safe visitor zones
Budget tips	Anticucho at Tía Grimanesa: S/. 20–30. Ceviche at a local cebichería: S/. 25–40. Metropolitano BRT: S/. 2.50. Huaca Pucllana: S/. 15. Lima is moderately affordable — budget S/. 100–180 (€24–44)/day for a full experience excluding the fine dining tasting menus