3-day itinerary · Peru
A realistic first-timer plan that spends day one in the historic centre, from the Plaza Mayor and the cathedral to the catacombs of San Francisco, with the afternoon at the Museo Larco and the evening at the fountains of the Parque de la Reserva; day two on the coast, the pyramid of Huaca Pucllana, the cliff-top malecón of Miraflores and the bridges, murals and bars of Barranco; and day three at the pre-Inca sanctuary of Pachacamac, lunch in Chinatown and the MALI, ending in Miraflores. Every stop comes with walking distances and the rules that matter in 2026.
Updated 12 September 2026 · 7 official sources checked · report an error
The plan at a glance
Lima is a city of districts strung along the Pacific, and its traffic is bad, so each day of this plan stays in one of them. Day one is the Centro Histórico on foot, the Plaza Mayor, the cathedral, the catacombs of San Francisco and the Plaza San Martín, then a taxi to the Museo Larco in Pueblo Libre and, after dark, the fountain show at the Parque de la Reserva. Day two is Miraflores and Barranco: a guided walk up the adobe pyramid of Huaca Pucllana, the parks along the cliffs, lunch above the sea, and the afternoon and evening in Barranco. Day three goes south to Pachacamac, comes back for a chifa lunch in Chinatown, spends the afternoon in the Museo de Arte de Lima and ends at Parque Kennedy. Huaca Pucllana is closed on Tuesdays and Pachacamac and the MALI on Mondays, so set the days accordingly.
At a glance
Day 1
Walk the Plaza Mayor and the cathedral when the changing of the guard is due, go down into the catacombs of San Francisco, follow the Jirón de la Unión to the Plaza San Martín for lunch, spend the afternoon among the gold and the erotic pottery of the Museo Larco, and end with the fountain show at the Parque de la Reserva.
Morning
Pizarro founded Lima on this square in 1535, and the bronze fountain of 1651 at its centre is the oldest thing standing; around it are the Government Palace, where the guard changes at noon behind the railings, the Archbishop's Palace with the finest carved wooden balconies in a city famous for them, the Municipal Palace and the cathedral. Come at 9:00 when it is quiet, and again at 12:00 for the guard.
Begun in 1535 on the site Pizarro chose and rebuilt after every earthquake since, the cathedral keeps the conquistador's bones in a glass-sided chapel by the entrance, a choir of carved cedar, fourteen side chapels and a museum of religious art in the sacristy and the crypts; the ticket for the museum includes the cathedral itself, which is otherwise open only for Mass.
The yellow baroque church and monastery of 1674, with its carved Moorish ceilings, tiled cloisters and a library of 25,000 old books, is visited on a guided tour that ends in the catacombs: the crypts under the church were the city's cemetery until 1808, and the bones of some 25,000 people are stacked and arranged in patterns in the brick vaults. Tours run in Spanish and English every few minutes.
The pedestrian Jirón de la Unión has been the city's main street since colonial times, five blocks of old façades, churches and cheap shops running from the Plaza Mayor to the Plaza San Martín, the elegant square of 1921 ringed by white beaux-arts buildings and the Gran Hotel Bolívar, with the liberator on horseback in the middle. It is the natural end of the walk and the place to eat before the museum.
Midday
Afternoon
In an 18th-century mansion built on a pre-Columbian pyramid and wrapped in bougainvillea, the Larco family's collection is the best introduction to five thousand years of Peru before the Incas: the gold and silver of the Moche and Chimú, the finest portrait vessels ever made, textiles, the open storerooms with 30,000 pots on shelves, and the famous gallery of erotic ceramics. The garden café is where to stay for a drink afterwards.
Evening
Thirteen fountains in a 1920s park, lit and choreographed to music after dark, make up the most visited attraction in the country: an 80-metre jet, a tunnel of water you walk through, a labyrinth of jets that soaks children on purpose, and the Fuente de la Fantasía, where laser and projection shows run three times an evening. It is kitsch and it is wonderful; come at 18:30 to walk the circuit before the first show.
Day 2
Take the guided walk through Huaca Pucllana, follow the cliff-top parks of the malecón to the Parque del Amor and the paragliders, lunch with the ocean below you, then cross into Barranco for the Puente de los Suspiros, the Pedro de Osma museum and an evening in the bars.
Morning
In the middle of Miraflores, between apartment blocks, rises a 25-metre pyramid of adobe bricks stacked on end like books, built by the Lima culture around 500 AD as a ceremonial centre and later used by the Wari for burials; the guided walk climbs the terraces, passes the reconstructed plazas and a corral of the llamas and guinea pigs the priests kept, and ends with the view over the site. The restaurant on the edge overlooks the lit ruins at night.
Miraflores ends in a line of parks along the top of 80-metre cliffs above the Pacific, joined by a path that runs for kilometres: the Parque del Amor with its giant sculpture of a kissing couple and its Gaudí-style mosaic benches, the lighthouse park, the paragliders taking off from the grass in the afternoons and the surfers in the grey water below. Walk south, with the sea on your right, and the path takes you to Larcomar and on to Barranco.
Midday
Afternoon
The seaside resort of Lima's 19th-century rich is now its bohemian quarter: pastel mansions, murals on every wall, galleries, and the wooden Bridge of Sighs of 1876 across the ravine of the Bajada de los Baños, the lane that runs down under it to the sea. Cross the bridge holding your breath for a wish, go down the lane to the beach and the old bathing pavilion, and come back up to the plaza and the church of La Ermita.
A few blocks south of the bridge, the art-nouveau mansion of the Osma family, with its stained glass and gardens, holds the best private collection of colonial art in Peru: the Cusco school of painting with its gilded archangels and Virgins in mountain-shaped dresses, silverwork, carved furniture and a room of southern Andean sculpture. It is small, cool and rarely crowded.
Evening
Day 3
Go south to the pre-Inca sanctuary of Pachacamac and its site museum, come back for a chifa lunch on the Calle Capón, spend the afternoon with three thousand years of Peruvian art at the MALI, and end the trip among the cats and craft stalls of Parque Kennedy.
Morning
For more than a thousand years before the Spaniards, pilgrims from all over the Andes came to this desert sanctuary at the mouth of the Lurín valley to consult the oracle of Pachacamac, the creator god; the Incas built their Temple of the Sun on the hill above the sea beside the older pyramids of the Wari and the Lima culture, and the Acllahuasi, the house of the chosen women, has been restored. The site museum at the entrance shows the carved wooden idol of the god; a car or the site's own transport takes you round the four kilometres of the site.
Midday
Peru has the largest Chinese community in Latin America, descended from the labourers who arrived from the 1850s, and chifa, its Chinese-Peruvian cooking, is the national comfort food; the Calle Capón behind the Central Market, under its red gateway, is the place to eat it, in old restaurants like Wa Lok and San Joy Lao. Walk through the Central Market next door afterwards for the fruit you have never seen before.
Afternoon
The iron-and-glass Palace of the Exhibition of 1872, in the park of the same name south of the centre, holds three thousand years of Peruvian art in order: Chavín stone, Paracas textiles, Moche and Nasca pots, colonial painting, the 19th-century watercolours of Pancho Fierro, and the modern and contemporary rooms upstairs. It is the museum that ties the others together, and the café in the park is a good place to finish.
Evening
The central park of Miraflores, two blocks of gardens and paths around the parish church, is the district's living room: craft and painting stalls in the evening, a colony of well-fed cats asleep under the bushes, street food, and the restaurants and bars of the surrounding streets. It is the right end for the last evening, with the malecón five minutes away for a last look at the ocean.
Before you go
Questions
Three days cover the colonial centre and its catacombs, the two great museums, the fountains, the coast, Barranco and Pachacamac. A fourth day allows Callao's street-art quarter and a boat to the Palomino Islands to swim with sea lions, the National Museum of Archaeology in Pueblo Libre, or simply a long lunch at one of the city's famous restaurants.
Huaca Pucllana is closed on Tuesdays, so keep day two off a Tuesday; Pachacamac and the MALI are closed on Mondays, so keep day three off a Monday. The Museo Larco, the catacombs and the fountains are open every day; the fountain show runs at 19:15, 20:15 and 21:10.
The Museo Larco is S/50 at the door and S/45 online, the cathedral museum S/30 for foreign visitors, the Magic Water Circuit S/7, Huaca Pucllana S/15 by day, Pachacamac S/15 and the MALI S/40 for foreigners. The catacombs of San Francisco are visited on a short guided tour with a ticket at the door.
Ride-hailing apps are the practical way between districts; Lima's taxis have no meters, so agree the fare first. The Metropolitano, a bus on its own lanes, links the centre and Miraflores in 25 minutes. Inside each district the plan is on foot; the malecón is a flat, safe 5-kilometre walk along the cliffs.
About 1.5 km in a straight line in the centre plus two taxis on day one; about 5 km on day two if you walk the whole malecón to Barranco, or 2 km with the taxi; and about 2 km on foot plus the trip to Pachacamac on day three. The centre and Miraflores are flat; Barranco has one steep lane down to the sea.
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Places and coordinates: Wikidata and Tripwoa's open-data place catalog (Overture Maps Foundation, © OpenStreetMap contributors). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, credited on each image. Practical rules: the official sources linked in each note, checked in September 2026.
How this plan was made: Tripwoa's planner drafted the day order from real coordinates and typical visit times. Each stop was then reviewed, reordered where needed and rewritten with AI assistance. Walking distances are straight-line estimates, so allow a little extra time on real streets.