Things to Do in Lima: 1 or 2 Days Before Cusco

Short answer: Give Lima one full day before you fly to Cusco, two if you like to eat. Day one is the colonial center with the San Francisco catacombs in the morning and the Miraflores cliffs and Barranco in the afternoon. Day two is the Larco Museum and either Pachacamac or a market and food walk. Sleep in Miraflores or Barranco, at sea level, where the ocean is and the restaurants are.

The case for a day in Lima

Lima is a city of about 10 million people on the Pacific, at 505 ft (154 m), and it is where every international flight lands. Most travelers fly straight through to Cusco the next morning. The mistake is twofold. Lima has the country's food, its museums and a colonial center on UNESCO's World Heritage List since 1988, and a night at sea level is the easiest acclimatization you will ever buy before 11,150 ft (3,400 m) in Cusco. Read our Cusco altitude guide and you will see why we put the coast first.

Three districts matter. The historic center, where the city was founded on January 6, 1535. Miraflores, on the cliffs above the ocean, with most of the hotels. And Barranco, the old seaside district next door, with the bars and the painters. Everything below fits those three.

Day 1: the center in the morning, the cliffs at sunset

Plaza Mayor and the catacombs

Start at the Plaza Mayor, the square where Pizarro laid out the city, with the cathedral, the Government Palace and the Archbishop's Palace on its sides. The changing of the guard happens at the palace around noon. Walk two blocks to the San Francisco convent, where the visit goes through the cloister, the library and the catacombs, where the bones of an estimated 25,000 people are arranged in pits and circles under the church. Photos are not allowed inside. If tight spaces bother you, wait in the cloister, which has the better tiles.

Our Lima city tour covers this in four hours with a guide, from Miraflores to the center and back, at 8:50 a.m. or 2:00 p.m., for US$97. Take the morning. Center traffic thickens through the afternoon and the plazas are calmer early. Keep your phone in a front pocket and your passport in the hotel safe. The center is busy, not dangerous, and the rules are the same as in any big city.

Lunch is ceviche, and it is a lunch dish

Eat ceviche at midday, not at dinner. The fish is bought in the morning and the cevicherías that locals use close by 4 p.m. Miraflores and Barranco have dozens. Order a classic of corvina or sole with sweet potato and corn, a pisco sour, and nothing else. For the record, a Lima restaurant was named number one on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list in June 2025 (Maido), the second time a Lima kitchen has taken the top spot after Central in 2023. You do not need a reservation at either to eat well here. You need a lunch table at a cevichería.

Huaca Pucllana, the Malecón and Barranco

Huaca Pucllana is a 72 ft (22 m) adobe pyramid in the middle of Miraflores, built by the Lima culture between about AD 200 and 700 and surrounded on all sides by apartment blocks. Guided visits run in the day and some evenings, and the view of a pre-Inca pyramid lit at night with traffic going past is a Lima scene. Then walk the Malecón, the clifftop park that runs for miles above the ocean, past the Parque del Amor and the paragliders, and keep walking south until the path drops into Barranco.

Barranco is the district for the evening. Cross the Puente de los Suspiros, the wooden bridge from 1876, follow the Bajada de los Baños toward the sea, and come back up for a drink. The Pedro de Osma museum, in a mansion on the main avenue, holds colonial art, and the contemporary art museum sits at the district's edge. Dinner here, then a taxi back by app. Do not walk back along the cliffs after dark.

Day 2: the museum, then the old coast or the market

The Larco Museum

The Larco Museum in Pueblo Libre, about 20 minutes from Miraflores, is the one museum we send everyone to. It opened in 1926 in an 18th-century mansion built over a pre-Columbian pyramid, and it covers 5,000 years of Peru in ceramics, gold and textiles. Two things set it apart: the storage gallery, where tens of thousands of pots sit on open shelves you walk between, and the gallery of erotic ceramics, which is exactly what it sounds like and is the reason the Moche are famous. Allow two hours and have lunch in the garden café.

Pachacamac, or a market and a food walk

With the afternoon free you have two good choices. Pachacamac is the adobe temple city of a coastal oracle about 19 mi (31 km) south of the center, older than the Incas and with the carved wooden idol in its site museum. Our Pachacamac half-day tour runs it with a guide for US$97, Tuesday to Sunday, since the site closes on Mondays. The other choice is food: the Surquillo market a few blocks from Miraflores for fruit you have never seen, then anticuchos from a street grill at dusk. Food walks with a guide exist all over Miraflores and Barranco, and a good one is worth the money if you want the names of what you are eating.

If you have a third day, spend it on the coast. Our Paracas guide and the Nazca flight guide cover the long day south, and the day trips from Lima page lists the five coast tours.

Where to stay in Lima

Stay in Miraflores or Barranco. Both sit on the cliffs, both are safe to walk by day, both have the restaurants, and both lie about 11 mi (18 km) from the airport, 40 minutes to over an hour by taxi depending on the hour. The trade-offs:

• Miraflores. The default for a first visit: hotels at every price, the Malecón at your door, tour pickups at the lobby. Busy and a little anonymous.
• Barranco. Quieter by day, livelier by night, older houses turned into small hotels. Ten minutes south of Miraflores. Our pick if you like to walk to dinner.
• San Isidro. The business district, with parks, embassies and the pricier hotels. Calm, orderly, and dull after 9 p.m.
• The historic center. Cheaper and atmospheric, with the plazas outside your door, but we do not put travelers there at night. The streets empty after dark.
• Near the airport. Only for a connection that lands late and leaves early. Callao is an industrial port district with nothing to see.

The airport is Jorge Chávez, in Callao, with a terminal that opened on June 1, 2025. Book your airport transfers through the hotel or a ride app, not a taxi hailed at the curb. The flight to Cusco takes about 1 hour 20 minutes, and the morning flights are the ones that leave on time.

Weather and when to come

Lima has two seasons and no rain. From December to April it is summer, sunny and 77 to 86 F (25 to 30 C), with the beaches open. From May to November a gray fog called garúa sits over the city for weeks, with lows of 57 to 61 F (14 to 16 C), damp air and almost no sun. Bring a light jacket in winter and sunscreen in summer, and remember that an hour inland the sun is out every day of the year.

Sources

• Lima, Wikipedia (population, elevation, founding, UNESCO 1988 and 1991, climate)
• Huaca Pucllana, Wikipedia (Lima culture AD 200 to 700, 22 m)
• Larco Museum, Wikipedia (1926, mansion, storage gallery, erotic ceramics)
• Barranco District, Wikipedia (Puente de los Suspiros 1876, museums)
• Restaurant magazine, Maido tops The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025
• Jorge Chávez International Airport, Wikipedia (terminal opened June 1, 2025)
• Ministerio de Cultura, Pachacamac site museum (closed Mondays)