If you’re planning a trip to Perú, you’ll be hard-pressed to do so without going to Lima. In our case, we weren’t even planning a trip to Lima, but ended up having a stop over on our way to Chile!  Rather than stay in the airport and hop on a plane to Chile, we decided to spend 24 hours in Lima to explore what Peru’s capital city had to offer.

You may be thinking, isn’t Lima unsafe? Isn’t the city full of traffic?  The answer is yes.  That said, there is also a lot to like about Lima.  I visited Peru about 20 years ago so I was coming back after quite a while and this time, bringing Adam for his first time. One day is the perfect amount of time for a whirlwind tour of Lima and arguably, two days would be even better for this wonderful city.

In our case, with one day, we decided to focus on spending time in Lima’s best neighbourhoods.  Since we were staying in Miraflores, we spent the morning exploring Larcomar, a cool shopping area built into the cliffs with a phenomenal ocean view, and then continued walking to JFK Park.  We made our way back to the hotel by walking along the Malecon and taking in the views. There were also lots of pop-up markets all along the waterfront and going to JFK park.

We stopped for lunch at La Mar, which still remains to be my favourite restaurant in Lima (even after 20 years). While La Mar now has a couple locations in the US, the restaurant in Lima is special. The ceviche is truly the best I have had and all of the food is just delicious. (Warning, if you don’t arrive when they open at 12, you’ll likely be waiting an hour or two for a table).

Following lunch, we made our way to Barranco, a super cool neighbourhood just next to Miraflores.  We took an uber from our hotel to the Bridge of Sighs and then continued walking down towards the beach enjoying the little art galleries, small shops and colourful murals along the way.  We watched the sunset at Rustica, the only restaurant / club on the water. Then, we made our way back up the stairs to the top of the cliff. From there, we continued to walk around checking out the colourful colonial architecture and stylish restaurants and bars in the area.  Eventually we made our way to Awicha for dinner.  

The city was just coming alive, but given our red eye flight the night before, we decided to quickly check out a couple of the bars and head back to the hotel and get a good night’s rest!