Lima, Peru 2 Day Itinerary

Day 1: Exploring Historic Lima

Do not hail a taxi off the street in Lima, full stop. Express kidnappings, where an unmarked cab driver and an accomplice force a tourist through a string of ATM withdrawals, are an established enough problem that every serious safety guide flags it, and it happens most often exactly where visitors relax their guard, in Miraflores and Barranco at night. Use Uber, Cabify, or InDrive instead, since all three show your route and lock in a fare before the car arrives.

Morning: Start in Pueblo Libre, not Miraflores, at the Museo Larco, whose real address is Avenida Bolívar 1515. This is the museum most people mean when they say they saw Lima’s gold, and it is worth the detour: the erotic pottery gallery alone justifies the trip, and the surrounding colonial garden makes a good breakfast stop before you head back toward the coast. From there, cross into San Isidro for Huaca Pucllana, a pre-Inca adobe pyramid complex from the Lima Culture that predates the Inca by roughly a thousand years. Guided entry is required and included in the ticket price, and an evening visit with the site lit up is arguably better than daytime if your schedule allows a return trip.

Afternoon: Have ceviche for lunch somewhere unpretentious in Miraflores rather than chasing a reservation you cannot get on short notice. Then walk the Malecón, the clifftop path running along the Pacific, before heading into the historic center for Plaza Mayor, the Government Palace, and the Cathedral of Lima. Duck into the San Francisco Monastery next door for the catacombs, an underground ossuary holding the remains of tens of thousands of colonial-era Limeños, arranged in slightly unsettling geometric patterns by the monks who ran out of burial space centuries ago.

Evening: If you want to eat at Central, Virgilio Martínez’s restaurant built around Peru’s vertical ecosystems, know two things: it is in Barranco on Avenida Pedro de Osma, not Miraflores, and the tasting menus run from roughly 950 to over 1,000 soles per person, so book at least a month out or accept you are not getting in this trip. A more realistic evening is dinner in Barranco itself, followed by a walk across the Bridge of Sighs and a drink somewhere near the Barranco Bridge, where the neighborhood’s bohemian, slightly worn-at-the-edges character is more genuine after dark than the polished streets of Miraflores.

Things to know: Lima’s coastal fog, the garúa, sits over the city for much of the year and keeps temperatures mild but grey; a light jacket earns its keep even in what looks like summer on paper. The currency is the sol, and while cards work in most restaurants and hotels, small vendors and market stalls are cash only, so carry soles in small denominations.

Day 2: Modern Lima and the Coast

Morning: Skip any itinerary that sends you to a beach called Cantagallo for a swim, since Cantagallo is a riverside district known for its Shipibo indigenous community and craft market, not a beach. If you want ocean, La Costa Verde’s Miraflores beaches like Waikiki draw surfers year round, though Lima’s Pacific water is genuinely cold even in summer because of the Humboldt Current, so temper expectations if you were picturing the Caribbean. Parque del Amor, with its mosaic sculpture by Victor Delfín, sits right on the Miraflores clifftop, not in Barranco as some guides claim, and it is a legitimately good sunset spot precisely because it is free and unfussy.

Afternoon: Spend an hour at MALI, the Museo de Arte de Lima, in Parque de la Exposición, which does a better job than any single colonial church of tracing Peruvian art from pre-Columbian ceramics through to contemporary work. For lunch, look for a proper causa or arroz con pollo rather than anything English-menu and overpriced near the tourist strip.

Evening: Close the trip at the Circuito Mágico del Agua in the Parque de la Reserva, a set of illuminated fountains that puts on a genuinely well-produced water and light show most nights; it is inexpensive, family-friendly, and a better use of a last evening than another fusion-menu dinner reservation you will not remember in a year.

Getting to and from the airport: Jorge Chávez International reopened a new main terminal in 2025, and the ride into Miraflores now runs 40 minutes to an hour and a half depending on traffic, worse during the 7 to 9 morning and 5 to 8 evening rush windows. Licensed airport taxis run roughly 60 to 95 soles depending on time of day; app-based rides from a designated pickup zone are often cheaper off-peak, in the 40 to 70 sol range. If a driver outside arrivals quotes you 80 or 100 dollars instead of soles, walk away, since that mix-up is one of the oldest tricks at the terminal. The Airport Express Lima coach is the budget option, with fares from around 15 soles and stops through the main hotel districts, and it beats sitting in traffic in a cab for anyone not pressed for time.