Full Day in Lima – Part 1

Well Sunday was a good full day in Lima seeing a lot of different things. We got up and saw what the world outside the hotel looked like in daylight…

A little less heartening than the night before. Mike, Dave, and I grabbed breakfast at the hotel, then decided to head out to see what was around in the Centro Historico area of Lima. We saw some great churches, like this one,  Parroquia San Marcelo which was built in 1585.

We continued on down outside another church and there was a procession taking place with Peruvian dancers, two brass bands, priests, etc. Ah, Sundays in very catholic countries.

The procession even went out onto the major road and they just directed traffic around it. After checking out another church, and trying to overlook the city a bit from a bridge, we worked our way over to the Church and Monastery of Santo Domingo. We got a guide and a tour through the monastery which had some interesting Moorish influenced architecture and a great library.

  

We got to see the underground tomb of Santa Rosa of Lima and a couple small chapels. At the end of the tour we were able to go up the 42m tall bell tower and get some great views of the city. Typically the skies are grey and there isn’t much sun at all, thankfully the clouds broke for a short while just after we made it to the top.

Of course the bell tower has amazing and old bells.

  

We kept working our way around and through the Centro Historico, we went to Plaza del Armas, saw the outside of the Cathedral of Lima, the Government Palace (and the changing of the guard). We went to the River Malacon and saw some shops, ate an empanada, saw a cycling race start (all in and amongst traffic), passed a squad of riot police all carrying their batons and shields, and went to the Church and Convent of San Francisco.

During the tour there, no pictures were allowed, but I just had to sneak some in the catacombs. They were phenomenal. Still full of bones, and you could just reach out and touch them (not that we did). There were a whole bunch of varying estimates for the number of bodies there, ranging from 20,000 to 75,000.

After the tour there, we grabbed a cab down to the Miraflores district (far more upscale, nice, and safe) for lunch.